Authors: Helen Dunmore
We are men, not beasts
though we fall in the dark
on the rattlesnake’s path
and flinch with fire of fear
running over our flesh
and beat it to death,
we are men, not beasts
and we walk upright
with the moss-feathered dark
like a shawl on our shoulders
and we carry fire
steeply, inside a cage of fingers,
we are men, not beasts
,
and what we cannot help wanting
we banish – the barn yawn, the cow breath,
the stickiness we come from.
(Titles are shown in italics, first lines in roman type.)