The fish, split and gutted,
jumped while limp in your hands
 
though it was far
from the river, and the dog whined
 
from the forest, would no longer
trail your truck or enter
 
the house. Suddenly, you had
no bug bites in August. No dark
 
wet marks bloomed
like mouths beneath your arms,
 
even as the sun made crumbling
paper of the leaves,
 
as neighbors fell ill
for weeks, as moths died one
 
by one against the windowpanes,
heaps of them quivering
 
in the morning wind, swirling
like ash from a fire.
 
The yard turned vacant but for pigweed
and tickseed. The ivy’s
 
severed skeleton tumbled
its backbone from the house.
 
What did you do, I said.
What happened to you?
 
But you only threw
the fish into the pan, clamped
 
the lid to hold it down,
and you would not relent
 
to its suffering. These days
my heart is always tearing
 
away from itself like a horse
broken loose in a storm.