Rapists

Rapists

The woods are full of rapists, converging on the
house and the dolls I made from semen seem
suddenly trite and conceptual. Each heartbeat
smashes my skeleton into a million snowflakes
as I claw the breasts of Lahiri Mahasaya in
stark, demented terror. Mistress Spine empty
your sluice-gates, Master Prostate gobble your
zinc and make genius in the anus where my
childhood wanders in the orchard of blood-
everdying, unable to pronounce AUM, superb
and meaningless as a cathedral. Leaving supper
untouched I hammer teeth and the ruby lioness
screaming my name knows panic’s the new puberty.

Jon Hellier