hunted child, hush,
my darling young one,
clean still to the vagaries
& tempests of the world;

listen.

the poet drowns in the gutter.
the prophet begs from the street.
they sigh together in long sobs their warnings:

walk careful in the markets and roads of the cities,
where the darknesses are cold and cruel with light-thieves,
where fingers and hands sift through the soils,
robbing graves for shine, for glow, 
to feed the rubes and the talkers
the whitewashed tomb preachers, 
the mad-mongers, sophists, 
the gamblers and teachers,
eating with clean hands speaking with stained words,
drizzled with milk and caramel and honey,
violent with milk and caramel and honey,
washed down with wine chased by tame words,
churning and burning and turning through words,
through the making of hearts while breaking of names,
tipping scales with tongues broken in prayer
by words, all the while wolves and wild canines 
shake whimper in legs between their tails,
trained to anticipate; to burrow, to wince,
to fear dread and glimpse of gentler faces,
softly in graces and stages and pulpits,
unfolded holy books soiled by muddied ink, 
by fetters and fancies, by training, hark the angels
come now, enunciate! but in civility please,
so as to turn saints from the masses
like water from old trees and leaf from the grasses,
roots-deep in grief and swampsand dim places,
drinking long drags, dragging long drinks, 
don’t be a drag, come please won’t you drink? 
yes, warm for the chest, warm for the body,
nourishing in shade and nourishing the body 
of the glorious and good and well-glorified,
the people of smoke, the holies of holies, 
transcending sympathies and mere easy empathies
in case—bonfire of books and bonfire vanities!
so the people of cruelties, of withheld sympathies, 
the suffering cruelties and demanding sympathies, 
the bruising easily and the pleasing for sympathies,
the demanding sympathies from such suffered cruelties,
for look how they bruise for such vicious cruelties,
the sympathies please, for shame the cruelties,
the cruelties, the cruelties,
the please please please
sympathies, all the while 
gouges and gashes and
forty-nine lashes, once
injured in rage, twice
wounded by doubt,  
always decimated
still eviscerated
by actors
by masks 
by love
or no
love.
 
—

hide your flowers.
seal the windows.
light the oven, little ones. 
the hunters are coming.