The Skull Collector

Our scalps droop from the roof of your belt
as you straddle our countries beneath
your thighs. Globe heavy, we rise.
You pluck us from cities, spur our guilt
rawhide your nets and tear out our sanity
with a witchlock, a woo, a prayer
or two, the hiss of a rattler
and a cheap handful of Manhattan beads.

A shaman leads your feet and eagles
stir the circle of salt flats into red noons.
Screech into lifelines of clay behind
your saviour's stamp. Your words,
tight crypts, lock us into our famine.
Iguana scurry, darker, deep
across the luckless desert land
and the albatross wind blows topless
as a mast where you nail us, each palm
praying. Serpentine thoughts roll
a shell rattle, prance as your footsteps
magnify in heavy beats and iguanas
shiver to the sea
that drowns the moon behind our eyes
as you break into the blackness
of our endless nights.

— Genine Hanns