People fall upon people hard, encrusted in lesions born
of steepness and sentiment, holding out in a windswept
basement, flashlights held out, swiping over the spooks,

so are the trials of rejection, replacement, judgements
barring every stoop of love or country; my gods are ill,
looped around sharp machines, shadows listing upside.

And we are off the ground, and ascending too high, an
inflow increasing the folds, shaping movements plainly
spoken into a microphone, tipped away from our hearts.

Succumb to the jamborees, our bones silicon and wired;
stop sharing bread to raise the knife, cut the stray hairs
from off the children whooping at the lit night with fingers

bent to stubs, minds buzzing in the sound, bleating like
deer who’ve been run down. Tightening, the narrow path
collapsed in, this concave hollow bedding all our throes,

wherein sits Justitia among all this rabble? Loves may
forgive us, but it’s a thin coat. The tumult pounds angry;
we either abandon this ire cargo, our abandon our boat.