They don’t bring horned gods home. In forest, in
trance, garbed in garlands … a slow cavorting

flame in lush curled-black leaves. There’s no sin
to be the chosen one, no crime pricking

yourself on flesh callous as oak. Do you
still think of what we did as devotion?

Do your nipples still stiffen thick? Mine do.
Gods are man-made. I’m no different. Most shun

these acts in time, for I burn a queer fire,
my tongue pressed in the middle. I’m at odds

with how I was born: abandoned in green …
I don’t serve faith, only function. The “sire”

in your desire, which dies, just like old gods,
once it’s no longer so strange or obscene.