The moth lifts its dress and everything beneath
\nits hem\u2019s shadow sings: the grasses
\nwhere lie the dead bull and flies skating across
\nits still-open eyes, its mouth crusted over
\nwith clover and spit and blood; and the maggots
\nswimming their patient circuits where
\nthe bull\u2019s genitals have rotted and dropped their bells.
\nThe moth slips through gnat-swarmed air
\nonto the bull\u2019s hooves and flies past the bull\u2019s corpse,
\nbeyond the outskirts of a barnyard. No dust
\nfrom the moth\u2019s pleats, opening and closing,
\ndrops onto the dead animal\u2019s choir.
\nA girl sees its black dress bobbing above her,
\nsees in its shadow an angel to call her own.
\nLet a sudden finish overcome her
\nwherever the wild shadow lies flat its news,
\nlies motionless its wingdom amongst the barnyard grass.
\nLet the earth take in the girl as it will the bull.
\nAnd the worm-work done unto her as unto the bull.
\nGirl\u2019s color gone and bone given into an end
\nmaking permanent the final pose of her suffering,
\ncrux into crux her body returning into itself
\nas though into the first cell that split
\nuntil skin, until marrow, until blood, until the maggot
\nis king over body. Let the girl\u2019s skin be a tearing,
\nto see it torn from her and wonder how
\nthen wonder how far\u00a0 until the next time, the next girl.
\nNo dust lands from the floating moth dress,
\nthe flying dress flashing its privates then not,
\nflash then not, flapping over the dead girl,\u00a0 its shadow
\nmoving up her thigh to the hip, to the torso,
\nlifting its garment across her naked.
\nAnd the bull into the earth. And the girl into the earth.
\nAnd the earth not full, the earth not full.<\/p>\n
The moth lifts its dress and everything beneath its hem\u2019s shadow sings: the grasses where lie the dead bull and flies skating across its still-open eyes, its mouth crusted over with clover and spit and blood; and the maggots swimming their patient circuits where the bull\u2019s genitals have rotted and dropped their bells. The moth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-1gm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10293,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions\/10293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}