it’s easy to know where the leaves were before they fell,
what her lips tasted after the caress of the loving hand,
what was in the crib  rusting in the forest of the night.

Only the twins know why they nod to each in the fog,
the thing  the hound bays for in the lake of stars,
what the alligators devoured in their circling frenzy—

the fattened beast
that exists bleeding
from the barn’s rafters.