One baleful Dogstar night
when no one slept,
and shepherds played bad-
tempered tunes, and villagers
in hill-held Licenza flung
stones at baying curs and
curses at insomniac neighbours,
here we came, thoughts
hobbled, expressions hunchback.
You sacrificed a phrase,
and I a sentence, and we
watched blood slowly fan-
out like a winnowing,
soak into earth raised
in hard welts and scars.
The spring flowed over green
rock, as a bull covers cows,
showing it accepted our offering—
not a firstling of the herd,
but firstling of the heart,
poison held nearest
that is pain to part with.
A wild pig with hot eyes
came unwittingly upon us
sitting there like two uprooted
statues, silent, bare, and white.
He drank, and the whole tribe
came to mar the clear stream.
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