En Route

SEE the dead doe on the baggage truck.

See the blood that drips from the mouth.

See the protruding tongue

foul with clotted blood.

The tongue has tasted the tongue of a lover.

Beside her lover

she strolled from the woods.

She came to drink.

From the yellow woods

to the yellow light,

while the sun was low,

she came to drink

at the brook in the meadow.

She heard no sound

save that of the brook

or that of the tread of her lover.

Beside her lover she wandered across the plain.

Beneath a morning sky

of white

and blue

and gold,

she wandered across the windy, sunny expanse of tawn.

She heard no sound

save that of the wind

or that of the tread of her lover.

She came from the wide, wild north.

Somebody wanted to kill.