Warmorange

What becomes of
the organic and the
warped manufacturement
of atrocity?
The chemicals, leached
out and in, each
infinitesimal atom of
doom a little slippery thing
on the skin that’s just jumped
off a cement pipe dam &
instead of wiping off all
“ewww,” it’s a new
permanence, a part of the water
and land and flesh (“oh yes”*),
part forever of the
other chemicals
The Hs and Os
infected
The orange of fire
and spray
misplaced on
sweaters and pleasant
fur of cats
And of the blood,
the blood of ten,
slain some three hundred
sixty-eight years back,
at the goddamnable hands,
maybe, of an ancestor,
have molecules of that enjoined
the circle hydrological
Has atrocity then rained
and flooded since,
Can we carry the energy of the lost
the dead
the taken
And not carry, too, the spent
energy of the killer, the groomer,
the changer and sprayer and buyer of souls,
Can we pick and choose,
like the Bible,
at molecular level,
Or are we water slightly
mismath’d, are we in four
parts, the two hydrogens and an
oxygen, and another, tentacled
to nastiness past now and forever,
a chillseeking atom
of poison
As much a part of us as the
wonder and aww
of stars,
soft fur,
cats
riverbrown
eyes &
sweaters all
warmorange.