Animal House Shape of God

We tracked every acre in full fury.
It seemed withdrawn: a meandering line
in the dog-smelling wind.

Eyeless black wolves lope like
lapping fur currents.
Their thousand syncopations brighten

a splitting silence; the smoke
runs down ridges.
Everyone else's son's in jail.

Why should our thoughts slope
below us? Grazing grotesques of rock—
see what's diamondback-struck.

We change our body temperature.
We are a noise, depending. The mind
blanks out a fault, shoots into river.

When one circles another,
it teaches forty-eight examples.
How many wolves we did not know.

We calm our hands by holding sticks.
Calling your name
guts the sky where branches

net a pulse of stars until calling out
bleeds your name please
make it drain all shape from our heart:

Copyright © 2004 Christine Hume All rights reserved
from Alaskaphrenia
New Issues
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission