in the beginning of the world was the first of the amputations

hacked from the giant body.  

There was never a scream as long and so mournful

as on the first morning when the wound saw the sun burn 

its raw light on the hunted ground, the first bone 

barren of meat for the eye finally to see. 

There is ever the time to eulogize the first crime, 

to tell the vast murder of the fearful beating heart, 

the sick meditation, the running panic, 

the pointed claw pulsing to tear its skin.