The night was tire-iron. The moon pressed
my throat like a steel toed boot, its beam
through a chink in the rusted tin. It happened
in either shouts or whispers and his teeth
and trimmed nails and his we both did this.
I’m not in the business of why. The drugged
afternoon you spent as a child on a teacher’s lap,
the monk tried on too-old accounts, who wore
gym shorts and shared with me a glass
of his monastery wine. But I know our bodies
are not sacred—that squirrels gnaw
on the cow bones littering the slope
behind the chicken coop where it all happened.
That once touched you never want to touch
again, or you want to touch anyone
you know won’t hurt. Anyway.
The moon is out for a drink and you are gone
for good. The living concoct their reasons.
The night is no less violent for it. So praise
be to God, or words arranged in pleasant rhythms.
Praise be to the single eyelash that disturbs your sleep.