Dog Sacrifice

for Papa Chongo

There are those

who can accurately estimate time

based on bloat or smell

or the insistence of flies

or the resolve of carrion birds

going hard at a putrefying carcass

Those who can discern witchcraft

in the angle of a wrung neck

or the depth of a gash

or the amount of drained blood

or the absence of a certain limb

or in the way fur was scorched or frayed

Some can assess the depth of suffering

in the way a jaw locked itself into overbite

or by examining a constellation of blood

scabbed below taut lips

if you can correctly assign lips

to the animal you find

impaled quartered skinned

scattered on a an altar

or dangling from a painted cross

& there are those who can digest

whatever they stumble onto

sinister philosophizing

sadistic mutilation

robed minions prostrate

before veiled or implausible or voracious gods

Awake or inured

or under the tutelage of mania

there are those

who can appreciate motive

can occupy a field

or stand in a copse of unspecified bushes

& know the urgencies that drove men there

know exactly how they arrived

at this nothing-else-can-possibly-matter