ritual
here suddenly
at the end of everythinga couple arrested
but not before they've raped
a four year old girl in
a wheelchairnot before they've filmed it
or even deeper
a man who rapes a
nine month old babytries to choke it to death
but it livesis this mercy?
is it a future you'd wish
on anyone you loved?these small moments like
the shadows of planes across
snow-covered fieldsthis farm forty minutes north of
where i dig for the bones of
never-born childrenthe dogs with their ribs broken
with their wounds infected
the sickness which spreads
from moment to momentthe horse starved to death in
a barbed-wire pen and
the animals that consider its corpse
