A toothless moon on 43rd Street—somebody is crying, sirensin the city. I saw the color of your eyes. I saw you,kneeling in the brambles, sewer-rotpainted on your ankles, all tooth and skin and razorbladelike the jack knife I’ll use to cut out my tongueif they come for you, if they askwhere you’ve been hiding.Everything splinters. This is a placewhere the dead creak in trees, where their white eyesfollow the ones who howl—their cold,indigo blood. This is my famine—you,crouching in alleyways, broken bottles(God was in the bottles). Smackon black tongue, canines slowly turning brown. We rot like yellowed pumpkins. We shootuntil the barrel jams.