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