two tentacles                                                     an upheaval on a surface of skins 
    as nails                                                          seal the coffin shut  
      we were not supposed to use it                                    but we used it and we
   we are neither happy nor                                        unhappy or at least we tell ourselves 
 this to comfort                                               ourselves as small animals sometimes escape 

         with ashes and chalk smeared                             over bristling hair with ears perked waiting 
  for a command to leave                                       the little stretch of soft clay 
hooves and claws pressed into                                      a floral arrangement of wild bores
          passive cows and domineering she                            wolves suckling the brow that will lead them 
    out of their wilderness                                       into a species of bones stroked by the hot air off the desert
  of lost mother land s                                             the brittle skeletal creak does not yield pushed sideways
                only dropped headlong from above                            it yields