A slice – I’ll take it neat. I’ll take it

as a treat for the brethren, a tidy morsel

for their tedious mouths, who tried to tame me

with a stick. Poled (the outboard motor

broken down) for hours through a swamp,

the Okefenokee, surprise party, was it

my birthday? – festoons of snakes, dead friends

materialising from mist, how was it

that I came upon dervishes, that cemetery

on the outskirts of Khartoum? – dust wheel, trance

gyre, a pile of shoes in its center, at the entrance

to a shower, how was it that I came to Dachau,

was sucked down through the body

of a drum, a message of war, Mau Mau

in leopard skins, killers with claws? – a slice,

I’ll take it neat. I’ll take it as a treat

for the brethren…