Black Dog Sin, Black Dog Omen
the Black Dog is projected purple in the blue and white sky
in the other bordertowns they’re convening in churches
teaching us new ways to kill each other
blowing things up in the desert,
and black bile boils spill pus on my over-easy skin
they’re giving silly monikers to the serial killers on
the tv
but i don’t get no fun name
like Knife Back Billy
and now everyone knows
my middle name
like i’m some hick
i am a manner of screams
and the rip of a taut-skin drum beat
i echo off the dust desert air
and no one hears us but him
i’m breaking the night in two
the red and the black
the Black Dog keeps me up all night, yelps in my ear:
that life after death is not freedom,
it is a locked box of pain
you bring your ghosts with you,
there they can take their time with you
there, in the other bordertowns,
in the fourth part of the earth,
the Black Dog sits and whines
he’s making the pale horse nervous
and the reins are already slick with my sweat
and spit and gummy insides
i ride each night and the Black Dog satellites above me,
as if the earth is flat and it tilts towards the real
-- Bray Evans is a writer and filmmaker from Ohio. @girlpynchon on twitter