From the Fishouse

They announced you captive.

They nouned you on the television screen.

They strung cut ears around their necks and winked from the parade
when their horses stood on hind legs
absorbing the morning light with blood on their hooves.

They picked scabs of dark from cigarette-lit streets
siphoned gasoline from walls lathered over babies beginning to teethe,
and slapped the fox from the lamb’s soggy neck.

In the soup line
your army held their leggings above the wet floor,
and kept smoke from slithering out,
when the announcer announced your language captive also,
caged outside
where it mattered only when it barked,
where they named you thief
as you jumped to bite the bone.