day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY NINE

Feast

mastication takes hold long after dusk
when politics and biometrics no longer
matter, when the dogs have taken to
the fields and run from the walking bones
that stagger after, knives and claws working
in the ash-grey hollows of their eyes

dogs run wild through forests and wait
for the encampments to fall silent,
for bodies in tents and truck beds
to stop shifting, for the meat to pucker
against bone, and maybe then, when
the dogs that run wild grow hungry
enough, they might return to masticate
before returning to the wasteland,
the purest form of aberration

through field and town, burning city after
burning city, Satan walking the ashen road,
looking at what we’ve done to ourselves
reading signs painted by finger, by blood,
clarity made complete through human
chaos and blundering—the meal has begun
and we are devouring ourselves to the
bone with every passing pettiness

the cruel truth is this:
no one stops eating once they begin,
not until there’s nothing left
and the wind carries the sound of dogs
hungry for their share
across the purple mountain majesties
where true freedom unspoken
now reigns in charred peace and silence

--James H Duncan

James H Duncan is the editor of Hobo Camp Review and the author of Feral Kingdom, Nights Without Rain, and We Are All Terminal But This Exit Is Mine. For more, visit www.jameshduncan.com.