“Take your children off the street!”
Shades hunt little bones and meat
Murderers and cannibals
Shorn the night to moan and meet
They prefer the nicked knot night
To drum bones and bite young meat.
Two kids are gone: no hide, no
Seek. We’ll just find bones and meat.
One kid had sweet salvation
The other, just bone and meat.
One kid bathed in bloody prayer
The other, just bone and meat.
Nothing found within a week
All the press and parents meet
While their guts digest little
Brittle bones and chewy meat.
Time passes and we forget
All the boys we used to meet
Playing in the woods and parks
Forget our streets when we meet.
*Your voice interrupts my time
To groan my love’s bones and meat,
Such subtle supplication:
On the phone “Can we please meet?”
At dinner “love the sinner”
While cooks simmer bone and meat
And in the sleet of the snow
You let me know “I eat meat.”
“Won’t you please come greet me at
The station? That’s when we’ll meet.”
“Hug your man lee boy,”* “He’s here!”
Feed me, love me, watch me eat.”