WHEN HER SECOND HORN, THE ONLY HORN SHE HAS LEFT,

goes up through the white and copper-topped

tunnel of my eye and enters the basket of bone,

we are no chimera the ancients ever dreamed.

At once too mundane and too fearsome.

At once too separate and too dependent.

There is more to say, but my speaking

is done with me. The goat screams, I vibrate.

My screaming is done. The first horn I hold

in my hand like a dagger clasped by the blade,

black-blooded at the base, whisper of fur

lacing the ripped edge. I’d only wanted her

to stop lying.