Neglected Petitions

rabid nurses, mouths foaming,
turn tourniquets into nooses,

mass hangings recorded by
an unblinking eye sprouting hair

triggers, the bullet is always
a home invader, wounds blossom

into a red meadow, windblown
bloodspatter coats my stunned face,

its expressions sold wholesale
to a cartel, now a husk of intravenous

twilight obscuring the fence-hole
to the catamcombs where tourists

feed mold spores like chia pets,
regurgitating swallowed shadows

for saints whose names were always
forgotten.