Out

Juniper branches slit open the throat of the sky
And out, out, out of its mouth spills a gurgling chasm of life
Veins chewed open and leaking arteries decapitated of air
Russet rivers out of the sky's flaring nostrils
Carmine creeks out of a slivered line
The sky grappling it's throat, it stumbles back
Slipping upon its own crimson cathartic blood
It burbles and gushes upon the branches in percolating pools
Until the eddy of its jugular swashes to a slow
And the spume of claret dries to a crusted froth over the treetops
And for the two thousandth year and another infinite night
The sky quiets to its horizon grave as the sun pulses out.


-anna sluder

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