The things I’m not supposed to talk about

Like how I covet collecting blood and bones

Like how my gaze is transfixed

By the slow descent of crimson matter

Dripping down glass

Blood that takes no injury to procure

Blood that causes life, not death, in losing

Blood that returns, over and over

To remind me I am real

.

I am not supposed to share about

Collections

And paintings

Watching the red transform

Upon surfaces

Well beyond toilet water

And mass-produced cotton shame inducing

Hiding devices

I’m not supposed to talk about it

But the blood

Is all that makes me re-member

So I love it

.

The things I’m not supposed to talk about

Like how I’ve been waiting

Months, weeks, many moons

Watching the torrential waters

Wash over its sacred, but ignored, body

Wondering if one day it might vanish

That stinky, striped carcass

A life once vibrant, now rotting

But upon each circling

I’ve found her

Slowly dissolving away

Staying

In my Dream

.

Her thick, black quills

Floating to the creek below

Batch by batch

And recently

The innards of tail

The sharp ridge of scapula

Washed clean from storm

Appeared

I’m not supposed to talk about it

How I’ve been waiting to be chosen by bones

How excited I am to see them

Wondering if they’ve been holding

As if cleansing

For my capture

.

I’m not supposed to feel

Such excitement as I crouch down, finally

Lay my gloved hand on its beauty

Whisper grateful blessings

And transfer this evidence of life and death

And the micro-macro cycle of everything

Into my blessed receptacle

.

A neighbor, leashed wildness by his side

Stops, childlike, to ask what I’ve found

A skunk, I say

Looking up to him

Staring from face laden

With invisible echoes

Of recent blood ceremony

It’s been here a long time, I say

Hoping for a moment he’ll join me

But his gaze immediately shifts

And there is no response

And still

Like many things I’m not supposed to Do

Like many things I’m not supposed to Say

Like many things I’m not supposed to Feel

I allow myself to honor

These strange desires

These drops of vital plasma

These candle-lit applications

These dirty sacred road blessings

These bones

This blood

I allow myself to honor

And let the human, thinking

Walk on