Patterns punctured into the skin fragments of an unspeakable name tattooed on her tortured wrist numbers adding and subtracting the pigment of her mythical race and of my name too across history Her engraved flesh the manuscript of a book she said she had written on scraps of paper while giant horses raced across the land over spilled heads and broken bones In my dream that night after she folded her arm under her head as a pillow a giant hoof struck our twin faces as I knelt before her to suck the blood from her wrist where my nails had erased our name
Copyright © 1996 Raymond Federman