Wooden Horses
The sky black as a grill, rains scapegoats
and sacrificed cats and dogs -
I’m crying the tears of a serpent
and a cheater, the game is fixed and I
knew it all along but I didn't care.
I felt like a hero in the arena even
as Cesar kicked sand in my mouth.
Let me swallow it with my pride!
It could be glass as fragile as the
ghosts of my soul which was broken
on the backs of children. So I wipe
my crocodile cheeks with my crumpled cuffs,
to hide the words that tumble from my tongue,
the idea of a butterfly -
dreaming the dream I once had dreamt.
Perhaps I am looking for miracles, grasping
for The Breast and The Holy Milk of Mary
instead only finding the pointless promises
of the perfume makers, although I would
rather kneel before them than the bleeding
ankles of The Begotten Son.
I am just another punctured heart,
walking on lobsters and crabs that snap
at my shins, but I trample them down anyway
along with my faux vegan beliefs -
so I am able to join the queue and
take the oath of the hypocrite,
and stand in line with
the peasants and the Philistines.
Should I be the one to tell them about
the errors our parents made?
That the horses they rode were made of wood
and the star they followed, was really a moth
flapping at a candle.
.
.