17 Sep Cave-Man

Behold in shadow-figures the image of beasts
Svelte-shouldered, dragged charcoal lines
Deep in a cave from our primitive-times
To honor and love what filled up our feasts:
A trivial expression these practical signs.

Seduction, pursuit, then the prestige
Lingering on the eye-gaze, an invite
Ending in strikes, a meeting of might
‘Til victim submits to auctor and liege
And the day in her eyes gasp into night.

The labor the slayer to his victim owes
Finds an affection with tenderest hand
Pouring himself into the work-demand
So he can himself receive from the blows
Laid on the host returning to the land.

Laying my head in the cool of the deep
I remember a life, that life I consumed
Permitting me rest in a wet hematite tomb
Where I dream, a shepherd loves his sheep,
Emerging the morrow from a guilty womb.

Hallowed came to rock an Image-flesh,
We décort with manganese and chalken-salt
Precocious works all about the sturdy vault
Valorizing innocence, our feeding-creche
The forgiving-floor for the killers’ fault.