The Bread We Eat in Dreams

turning up their ion-trails at those sell-outs trying to teach

the dinosaurs about ritual practice

and the importance of regular hecatombs. It was

a lot like high school. The popular kids figured out the game

right away. Sun gods like football players firing glory-cannons

downfield

bookish virgin moon-nerds

angry punkbrat storm gods shoving sacrificial

gentle bodied compassion-niks

into folkloric lockers. But one

a late bloomer, draft dodger

in Ragnarok, that mess with the Titans,

both Armageddons,

started showing up around 1928. Your basic

trickster template

genderless

primary colors

making music out of goat bellies

cow udders

ram horns

squeezing cock ribs like bellows.

It drew over its face

the caul of a vermin animal,

all black circles and disruption. Flickering

silver and dark

it did not yet talk

it did not yet know its nature.

Gods

have problems with identity, too. No better

than us