il mio cuore selvaggio/ my savage heart

breathes uncertainly,
each seething beat
an inscrutable master
dancing over the graves
of my ill-sung epics and
leading me on hands
and rug-burned knees
through sunken grassblades and
gravelled shag, leaving me
curled up and fetal in the center
of a white-sheeted bed
too large
for a single person,
too small to hold me
safe
from the nightmares of escape
that press into my back again
and again, fingertip-pulses
of flashing neon slipped
between shoulder blade and sinew,
laced tight into the wet hollows
of my soul,
promising.