He leads the pack a python’s length,
pandilla of gangrene awed and seaside,
hoarsing ‘dare we play with fire?’
They whimper the threat dreamed
in a child’s handful of pebbles
and dutifully He shows the doleful parents
the curve of Grief’s vast borders,
ringing the changes on buckle and notch,
connoisseur of the portable armory.
He loves the work, takes more
than modest pride in the number
of those who curse Him nightly in their prayers.
A wheelchair in a hothouse,
the target’s name on a tiny scroll,
the abacus at rest, the stipend settled.
A glass of wine to seal godspeed
and best of luck and lips now still.
He notes the resemblances among the
drowsy animals, the commonwealth of
fear in the old, the yellow-irised eyes.
They wake to dreams of rich food,
are flattened by their sudden loss of appetite,
as though a great worm were curled
tight round their spine, its tail
a twitch in the foul puck, the gasping gut.
Bypass the King, speak to my mind, oh Worm.
How poisoned were those hurtful words,
from lips furred with locust, tongue
gilded with wild honey.
At the door leading from the hothouse
He stubs a basket, covered with a cloth.
Is it too much to hope
that it holds only fresh-cut melons
that He barely budged?