A squirrel in the rain Is scurrying back and forth. That racket echoes the cadence Of our story, two demons Chasing their tails.

Before it began, somewhere, We knew all of it would come To no avail. The angry tears Or the scabrous wounds Were waiting,

Fangs within their hoods, Claws within their sheaths. Nothing could have been done Any differently, nothing Would have changed.

those obscured writs reported later in our newspapers, as if, the murderer was not in us, or as if we never saw the knives used to repeatedly

slash that steady rain!