We can cut out Nemesis’s tongue
By omission or simple analysis.
Doesn’t this sin have to marry
Another, like a wishbone

Worked into meat, to grow
Deadly? Snared within
The blood’s quick night,
Our old gods made sex

& wit, of nitrate & titanium,
Hurl midnight thunderbolts
& lightning. Are we here
Because they must question

Every death in an alley,
Every meltdown? We know
We wouldn’t be much, if thorns
Didn’t drive light into wet blooms.