Forty-Nine

Two horses in yellow light

eating windfall apples under a tree

as summer tears apart milkweeds stagger

and grasses grow more ragged

They say there are ions in the sun

neutralizing magnetic fields on earth

Some way to explain

what this week has been, and the one before it!

if I am flesh sunning on rock

if I am brain burning in fluorescent light

if I am dream like a wire with fire

throbbing along it

if I am death to man

I have to know it

His mind is too simple, I cannot go on

sharing nightmares

My own are becoming clearer, they open

into prehistory

which looks like a village lit with blood

where all the fathers are crying: My son is mine!