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When the Firefly Lands

For Jacques Fleury  

Give me some of that
sweet fuck.
Because the same sun
that shines over Haiti
burns this desecrated ground.
Big and brown, boy
you feel the vibrations.
There’s a rough musk steed
in your pinky,
there’s a virgin hellcat
in your thumb.
Like a devil full of God’s love
you cut down the street
rip halos through the town.
Sweet, blond, tree hugging fools
swear they love everyone
when you know it’s only you,
but you smile-- kill them
with a flash of your teeth,
drown them in the glisten
of your eye.
Yes, the smaller animals
are all afraid.
Little sparks from you fly,
threaten to alight
fur, skin, scale
like hail storming down.
You want the bone--
and you know we’ve all got it.
Hard, porous, white,
break it if you bend it,
take the marrow until you render it
empty but alive.
There is more, there is more, there is more…
 
Oh sweet, dark God--
We sinners are calling you.

© Coleen T. Houlihan

First published in Ibbetson Street Press; Issue 20.