a_strange_treat

From the Cannibal to his Dying Love

My sweet,
Your beauty is not what it once was.
Do not weep,
Beauty changes, does not diminish.
I cannot recall your shape and form
Young and supple among the lush reeds
Where long ago I caught your scent
And fell to grass as though drunk.

Memories fade through years
Like colorless daguerreotypes
missionaries bring.
You have seen them, praying to Love,
though their love is disembodied, sterile,
Lacking teeth and blood.

But my heart,
my heart remembers the drunkenness
of that night on the grass
and of the morning we rose with the sun,
hungry.

My heart remembers
the anticipation and fulfillment
of our sons and daughters,
themselves now fathers and mothers
save one

My heart remembers our mingling tears
when our second daughter died
of smallpox after the soldiers came,
how we wrapped her in their blankets,
and lowered her shamefully into the earth.

My heart remembers
My heart is not content with remembrance.

Life,
must continue
cannot be allowed to sizzle up into sand
like the streams in the hot season.
Soon, your sleeping flesh,
will sustain and nourish
Life.

My love,
Not a single morsel
will I commit to flames.
My love,
I will eat you raw.