To Open an Envelope

A red fox doesn't compromise 

in the dead of night, when 

secrets are shaved of extraneous fat. 

Don’t hide in these burrows, 

human: mockery 

of a god, liar 

in a mirror.

So-called wrangler. So-called

man. 

Simply how it goes. Full 

moon demands 

incision. Forgot 

the anesthesia. Sorry.

Let's say it’s for your own

good. Rotten, spoiled

love choked deeply into 

vaults---let it spill

its pools of gold---

the howling release of a ruptured dam.

(Poor poet, in the dead

of night, more fearful than

a bluebird on a pyre.

How could you ask of me

not to take my prey?)

A man revealed,

all his ornaments unsealed.

This is what rapture feels like: 

to lose what you had thought 

was yours

alone,

and to find, at the very pith

of the wounds you had nailed

heavy with your own hands,

That Emerald Music-Box

(molecular and breakable)

whose pins re-pluck that self-

same tune, over and again

like a faulty tape player that could lull you to sleep.

(A dash of cherry 

in a slow summer breeze;

a childhood memory.)

A blood-red sun rises from the South.

There is ink drooling from my paws.

I bow deep.

I lick the wound shut.

I return to my home, and await the shadows.