The flesh is sizzling,
Limb muscles twitching,
Deep tissues pulling where the boiling blood anoints.

The bones are cracking,
The cracks leak marrow,
Bubbling as the firebarbs pry the joints.

Bowing spars, taut sinews.
The homes you had, forever lose.

The chest cage quivers,
The skeleton clicks and shivers,
Pulse racing forth and back as the hidden heart directs.

The fire flares and throbs,
Hopping up the spinal knobs.
Neck twists, skull hissing from a dozen bright defects.

Bursting through the splits and warps,
A new life from a burning corpse.

Feverish desire,
A deafening choir.
Some infant genius that knows what it knows.

A secret dream coiled deep,
Released in this tormented heap,
Calmer now, retiring while the pulsing heart glows.

Sliding sleeves, limb bones charred,
Cooled with breeze and growing hard.

Poise tripped, lunging into a cock and spring assault.
Huffing, heart-flooded, headlong over a flashing flush I vault.
Yes, I hear you chattering.
No, I will not halt.

Cresting rises, seams leaping, my hooves bunch and spread.
Moss, straw, snow lobe, no—a rock ravine instead.
The seen closing behind,
The unseen opening ahead.

At the edge of the world, over the grass I fly.
Knowing this gait is right, without knowing why.
A feather-thin fate glowing
In a golden eye.

The doubts chatter louder, into my ears and through.
Where are you headed so fast? Don’t you have a clue?
This mounting dread, what does it mean?
Don’t you wish you knew?

Your heart is dreaming. Keep in stride, try.
Trust this heading, let your hope climb high.
From this first stony stream
Into a burning sky.

The Lead lunges.
I shy, bucking up.
Over the top—
A gray tableland.

I must cross.

Swing down headlong, frantic for speed.
Hoarding the momentum. Faster, flee!
Out on the flat, flat.
Make the legs pull, pull, pull.
Racing hard to run me down,
Following fast over the open ground.

High rock—faster! Must reach soon.
Dry grass, silene, azalea budlets unbloomed.
On the quilted mat, mat, mat.
On the shocked shag, shag, shag.
Closer, closer—how can it be?
Lead’s face large, eyes sizzling at me.

They are gaining,
Strung out in a line.
You are mine, the paws chant.
You are mine.

Break off heading, feint and veer,
Switching and swerving to cut clear.
But still they near, near,
Eating up the spread, spread, spread.
Panic, panic, I’ll never last.
Bulwark too far, losing ground too fast.

Keep up speed and wheel left.
My only chance, a bending cleft.
The pack pivots like a blade, blade.
Swinging around the Lead, Lead, Lead.
Mud, splash, sliding, wolf at my haunch.
The bend comes, gray death ready to launch.