Cell Block on Chena River

First: Brother, remove the tool marks on your scathed skin, brush your tattoos with

nettles, smear bearberry juice in the gashes. Crack open the jail-seed.

Second: Tear away the bars which restrain

your lean, spare life. Bend your curves in a knot. Brother, smudge your

saw-tooth edges.

Third: Cut red seaweed to conceal your gray cadaver;

start wetting your skin down; after scraping,

drip your bowels of blood, change into wolf.

Fourth: The savannah sparrow flies north.

In speech, smell fine-grained hawthorn.

Collapse your voice into bark and howl.