Then in your eyes,
a furnace flared
To hollow
your face.
Flies above
your empty sockets.
Maggots made
your split skin.
Another cow dies
from breathing
as you swallowed
from the same air.
How many days before
it wintered you gray
in this wilderness turned
makeshift-graveyard.
How many hours
before the lesions,
before your vomit
hardens the earthen
floor. Somewhere
a house ages cold,
no longer warmed
by the hearth
you once tended.
No one lights
any spirit money.
No one chants the way.
