Rope wrapped around its neck, on a willow branch

suspending it just above the dirt in shadow.

I almost got hit by it, but dodged its swinging remains 

and squatted far enough away

from his leaking flesh, and broken ribcage.

 

I was by myself, shocked, and the fallen it,

its burnt, crusted flesh and flesh-torn bone

in raging red, screamed downward into the earth,

and was consumed. When, from the supernatural,

He rose into a bright shadow.

 

I crouched and tip-toed, as I recall,

looking up into his soul, and entered . . .

And just a night ago, crouching in a dream

under his soul again, I entered, and there,

in this hole of stillness, at the suspended

 

center of form, in his skull,

I collected his light, but the human

understanding of color, the sunset’s gold and tangerine,

the rose’s red,

the star’s collected white.