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OUR ALTER EGO HANNIBAL
OUR ALTER EGO HANNIBAL
Hundreds of Indian mothers love the buffalo killer’s hands
As we love the hand wielding the ax that beheads our chickens;
It’s always night for these creatures since their issue from the womb
We never hear the cries that script the distance from their killing
Fields to our dinner table and no blood is on the hides we bleach
And tan with our conscience. We wear their pain as raiment.
The red wine from vintners on our own killing fields of former
Battlefields is an apropos libation to add to the palate loving
Briskets, breast and the rue made from mixing flour and blood.
Hannibal the cannibal liked his liver and fava beans finished with
A nice Chianti. Our circus of pain is from this abundance that gives
Birth to death, along with acidic fruit and the first snow of winter.
Not much has changed since man first invented fire and roasted
Rabbits with his new discovery. It’s as if we put our trust in the
Setting of the stars having secret accomplices with killers at night.
It is as difficult to silence the bleating lambs in our brain as it is
For us to reform our desires. Hannibal’s heart melted by her FBI
Protégé who tried to save just a few. Who can bear to hear them cry.
