There a whole cornucopia of wild in here:
chicory sprouted from the corpses of dead uncles
to protect against parasites, yarrow rooted hitters,
crystal repurposed from a shattered crack pipe
I once found dirty in my foot from my methadomed
roommate who is, of course, also dead now. Alla dat
grew into a chrysalis of mercury too. In all my cauldrons
there’s a lesson about crossing or uncrossing me
or the river running through, and it’s somewhere
between Styx and Zug Island. Good luck with your
goblets, drink up and be merry today is not your day.
What I really want to know is how it tastes,
the scorched earth still burning your tongue
or anything that rhymes with the opposite of
blood? Does it pair well with the way your bones
went to dust when you thought you saw a wound
[dead] dear and went to snap my neck? All I know
of mercy is located in a bead of my own sweat
equity, and I’ve lost patience with your shot
clocks. I want to tell your children about their
heroes but it’s already too late. I want to whisper
in the back of a classroom with your girlfriends,
but there’s not an address left on Earth for my
exhaustion. So here it is, stick your tongue out
and have a taste, it won’t hurt you. All these
knives turn acupuncture on this table my
ancestors built centuries before I even arrived.