long-pelted ladies walk upright
out of the swamp, lashes flick
from eyes and wrists, lace together
forming stretchers for my charcoaled brothers
and I to lay down upon,

the sky's new hum, tangerine skins all around
in the moonlight, milky hammers
for pelts to fetch home to the tides
far under the swamp now boiling,
twang in their own caged shadows.
I enjoy the song that the ladies aren't singing

it's coming from a crack in the ground.