A Poem for Anderson Varejao

—until you can’t
hold mouth straight
like swamp
weeds
under alligator
snout.

The dreams are over
and morningspoil clings to joints.

Sight forgets him.
He steals into the room’s
cold oil.

Anger wraps
around his wrists
like wind beneath
a bird’s bones
or the smell
of wet moss
set aflame.

Dancing like
windswept steam
he flings an
elbow into his
second foe’s forehead.

Tufts of feathers
grow on his back.
White and gray
anthills.

Sunlight
reaches into
the ashblood
and glows
it fishscale
like the
pink lining of
a siren’s
lungs.

He did not see
the man with ears
poking through
hair like vegetables through
the undergrowth. The man
who moved like
a fingernail through
velvet and
made his rage
remember the
floor.

His howls
puddle into
ink-limbed sleep.
The air
groans
with a stone in its belly.