Читать книгу How to Be Eaten by a Lion - Michael Johnson - Страница 15

Bone Lullabies

Everything that comes here to feed dies.

Mazuku, the tribes say. Evil wind.

Volcanic air gone glacial through dried creekbeds,

stoking the flora to life, drawing the grazers.

Gazelle and kudu racks bedeck the turreted anthills

like underlings for the elephant pharaohs.

Why here? Perhaps this was the way to die:

drawn by green in an otherwise wilderness,

following the guideposts of your family’s bones.

You’d follow swifts snapping the dusk down,

bequeathing evening to night.

The stars might seem a paradise descending,

birdcage blueprints for the rungs of your torso,

each rib sunned and razed, your breaths housed there

so that as you rest your marrow rocks the beasts to bed.

The soil springs the veined calligraphy of leaves.

The birds dine on the ripe fruits of your eyes,

perched on your carriage staves, flapping

their prayers in the dust to eventide songs

that roam your bones long after sleep has come.