We Came Out at Night

By | 1 April 2010

The workers never ate despite the creatures
nesting in the jigsaw rot of their throats, their shrunken
lungs. Father released them nightly
from the stable. They shuffled towards the formaldehyde trough
for a dip and then dripped their way to the cornfield.
The oldest, Dió, wore a face that was a motion
picture of centipedes and shifting holes. He took care
of our baby sister ever since she stopped crying.
She sat on his lap – a silent grey thing with her torso stitched tight
against the cold – while indoors
Mother banged her head against the kitchen wall.
Brain matter swarmed to our lips. She tasted
the way a rubbing of wings takes place inside a body.
She was dank. All the animals she ate in the past possessed her
as she had taken possession of us.
Father never survived the drought, but rested
for years in our bellies – with his useless rifle, his missing foot.

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