Le Mardi Gras Mask

On this field, we play
a caged chicken cursing Darwin's god
such perfect breasts and shortened wings
too heavy to fly
his throat cut with the fiddler's strings
stripped until nude
bathed
consumed

encapsulated cosmos of play
every face fake
and a smile
the last of our songs oozing
   from whiskey sweat
Child-me see's the mud
and I remember once again
to dive into it

until tomorrow
when play will be banished
when the field will be burned
my sins forgiven
Child-me
buried under the ash.

TA