(If I were you, I'd call me broken)
She, lovely like a pendulum,
between a ruined house of bondage
and a holy promised land
where the bones of the child are hid.
(If I were you, I'd call me driven)
My heart is stained with stains
of flesh on flesh in dark.
My scrapbook stuffed with murder
whispering through the wires of my spine.
(If I were you, I'd call me hunter)
On battlefields the hunters rule me
while others amputate their limbs.
Where they fell and rotted
I'm turning to gold.
(If I were you, I'd call me virtue)
The unpanicked dissection of his glory,
measuring all of Heaven.
The breathing of God,
a calico bird's-eye view.
(If I were you I'd call me just)
We do not want too much flesh on it
for flesh is warm and sweet.
Their appetites are whetted;
they feed on carrion soul.
~~~
(All lines not in brackets are taken from the
anthology The Spice-Box of Earth
by Leonard Cohen, 1961)
