This World

I
A chirping yellow nurse rolls her chrome cart close,
connects the machine to measure breath and beat.
Mother prone on the padded table
struggles with the simple instruction.
Frightening drools of flesh
hang from her chalk brittle bones,
sweet mercy, I look away.

II
The water washes over yellow stones,
splits round the island of gold grass.
My splashing sends vultures to the trees.
The buck lies half in the stream,
a felt antler plunged in sand.
Red fur points fringe the dark hole
where they extract his meat.

It is the brutality,
this God awful brutality,
which shakes
and shapes me.