We are fruits of the earth we eat of the earth then the earth eats us, cracking and parting underneath.

The plates beneath me break, so as not to sleep, I must surrender reluctantly, but all around me are comfortable men and matching flesh.

There is nothing for me here under my fruitless tree except for the lonely slope down east.

I feel not like a real man but, by plummeting, I become one spurred on by loving hands shoving, singing, “Why can’t you become?”

It’s a violent consummation, one that rips out my rotten placenta and shoots ropes of blood into my eyes leaves me begging my flesh to melt.

Now, in dark, there is no one to tell me if the sun will rise again and to think I have to bear this out even to the edge of doom—