Black cords round blue necks
strung up down the street,
non-electric decorations
crows and vultures feasting.

But darling, things are looking up,
It’s not me that’s up there.
Yellow bodies strung from power lines,
staring down at me.

I see the fire in the sky,
while they see fire below
or nothing, so much flesh for fuel,
birds, demons, all the same.

Embossed approval on my breast,
a Magnum on my hip to prove it,
I call out every name but mine,
till throat is hoarse and old Miller soothes it.

Don’t matter who they were,
what they did, only what they thought.
They’re but ornaments on a tree
and I, one of many branches.

My darling, things are looking up
since I knotted the buds round your throat.
No more looking over my shoulder,
you were too sensitive for this world.

The chloride wasn’t fast enough.
It’s worth not having you here
to save the planet, have clean water-
Can you imagine eating T-bone again?

See, darling, things are looking up.
Only a necessary cleansing.
We had to become a disease
to right the balance.

Published in Transfer Magazine.