Shiva

destroyer, eater of souls, ma’am, it’s me, Margaret, I’m seeking a pass.
Come by me with that big ass again. I think I missed its meaning.

When yet again he ministered an escape from custody, there was
blood on the barbs on the wire on the fence that surrounded the

house that crime built, brick-by-brick from quarried stone doomed
before freighting, and carrying its stench before it, befelling

all who came near. The strong cried for their mothers, the weak
just passed into oblivion, then to clay and rough bits that just

won’t mill down, fouling our plans for flour from bone. O' well.
Our bread comes from China. We stand on the workers’ backs

to glimpse home. It’s out there somewhere, possibly, a plan
of some sort, a feel for where this is going. I asked the eight-ball

Sport, give me some juice, he said I can’t say at this time.
Beyond that the neighbors have been troublesome,

starting fires beneath mother’s begonias and lounging about
in various states of undress and general filth;

God save the union.