Sepsis
By Claudia Madden

There is a language to chaos
that speaks to the bile
in your gut
and to the bass tones
in the heels of your feet
and it guides men
like salmon
to that most basic of salvations.
Huffing oak branch smoke stacks of sweet, fetish darkness,
the climax of antipathy;
To be over top—
to be more than.

It was the effort that exposed him, the gimp.
Exertion left him vulnerable,
suckling benevolence
with his belly to the sun.
Such trust must be an insult,
That we would seem
So mild
A threat.

Real drugs
are extracted from people.
Leave them their money,
take the brightness from their eyes.