[Like any light now breaking in the sky]

Like any light now breaking in the sky I am the arrow: I ride and I decline. My throat’s an ulcerated weapons cache where radioactive gunsights bleed their toxins in groundwater. Birds rear up, deranged, their mitochondria are scrambled. They cannot steer by stars. I’m as disheveled: my lungs raise two black flags inside in warning, boil like frogs, flap, release fawn-colored scum. Skimmed from my lips, my only utterance, my spit is studied for its signs. Gross sibyl. When Death leans in, his staff’s encircled by a viper. I adorn him with my spittle, with my cipher.