Give My Body to the Ravens

Give my body to the ravens
let pale fire come, slow
oxidation and nothing
in proportion; please, my lover
left between the sheets.

Sing the breached walls, Troy
or Carthage downed
like adolescence burning
nothing in reserve
bound to meet its match.

Artemis in a snowdrift
cold nest, Apollo
down in the gutter again
when he thinks no one is watching
turning women into trees
or something.

And what cheap piper will tweet now,
our lady of the arrows
with blood-stained hounds
who asks us for our sorrow
as the bottle empties?

Even as a child, our hands
are deeply lined, ready
for our fortunes to be told:
where you will go
with smoke out of your mouth
old blade clenched between your teeth
how many sighs you will embrace.