After “The Butcher Boys” by Jane Alexander.
Beside the other blighted
gods in the waiting room,
pale and creaturely,
I anticipate.
There is so much
approaching. However
white I fade or quick
I turn away I was not
mere. These: the tusks,
cut ropes thrown from
the latch of my jaw.
Here: the trenched
scar tapering down
my blood-let torso. I opened
brutally, once, and now
am shut, milksop
god of war.
