When There Is Burning Instead

                         Isaiah 3:24

After the war, after they have torn the sinews

from the necks of sheep

in the countryside, the wolves

will come down from their forest

into the city, to eat the raw meat,

to lap blood from bone-bowls,

their paws against the roads

like the beat of a transplanted heart.

They will compass about me

where I lie. They will curiously graze

their teeth against my cheek

and lick the scrape on my hand

and I will not be afraid of them

because my blood is bitter

and my marrow rancid

and my skin is a linen of bees

and my tongue is split

into two songs, two branches

that grow soured figs

up through the charred

rubble of my throat. And I will sing

one into your mouth

if it would comfort you,

and I will sing the other

to comfort them,

though they will only hear me howling.