Animals on Asphalt Speak the Language of God

Too long, hooves percuss
weary pathways,
crash branches,
teeth fight,
then bite the cheek to keep from speaking,
leads a woman to mourning
and the wish from her tongue
to see every part pulled away,
to enter the forgotten and unseen
kingdom of kill,
to run no more,
but grow, still.

Animals on asphalt speak the language of God.
Enter the body through words
sung as many times as it takes
to scatter,
mantra of
lip, guts, liver,
mantra of vagina’s hidden pelt,
mantra of bones, the last to go,
yellow spine
yellow organ
yellow sinew
yellow neck
vanishing
lost
bent
forgotten
missed
to
rising
mist.

Amy Alexander lives and writes near the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her work has appeared in several journals, most recently Mojave Heart Review, Cease, Cows, Mooky Chick, The Remembered Arts, RKVRY, and Dirty Paws Review. Follow her on Twitter @iriemom.