Lupercalia
Winter is as ignorant as it has always been.
What sky we have is clouded gray.
The river that cuts through the city has frozen.
Last year my mother ran down
to the dock, threw
her hair onto the ice and
let her brain crystallize. My sister cracked
open her skull and crunched
her nickel plated stuffing
as she would cotton candy. She thought
the round tumors of rose quarts
nestled there would
make her fertile
since the preacher’s flogging didn’t.
Today I will burn a salt cake
at the slum’s edge,
behind the power plant.
You can come along if you want,
suck at the teats of some rabid wolf
with me. There are so many three
headed mothers who ate their
little ones in the famine. Screw
prudency, soon we’ll all be running
around on eight legs braying insanities
at the spot where the corn husk moon used to be.
