Raging Red

Adorned with purple vetch, and garlanded
With hawkweed flowers bright as new-spilled blood
From long-forgotten victims, raging red
From gaping eye to gaping bovine jaws,
It strains to heave the wire fence with hooves
The nightfall might mistake for human hands.
The clay begins to crack, and with a burst
That showers dewclawed, cloven feet with soil,
The metal posts erupt like rusted teeth.

It pauses, then, to hear its beating heart,
To hear the piping of a Swainson's thrush,
The fading breeze in cedars near the marsh,
The final moaning of the broken man
Who drips upon the clover and the gun.

And then the minotaur is free. It roars
With upraised muzzle at the bloodstained moon.