Last night knives bloomed like lights in my hand I chopped two gallons of fresh picked tomatoes and peppers and onions and cilantro from my garden I chopped until my wrist ached and all that was left of my angry horns were bones in the arena and the burning walls of Rome I was afraid to run in the slippery dark so I chopped instead intent as women bent in potato fields as hens stopped at their chalk lines as fortune exploded the earth I am responsible for the battles I fight for alien faces I have not seen for immaculate issue and the damp hidden places underneath the single road into town last night I was an occupied country and knives my mortar one easy whistle from fruit to jar when I am in my kitchen I live forever a day of bees serpentined over complicated grass I stood in tomato juice like the blood of generals until my eyes became opaque I canned six pints of pico de gallo six pints of peeled and roasted tomato confit with sliver thin sliced garlic and bright red bird peppers and olive oil I made marinara enough for an army or my own shrive winter I stuffed my angry puffed nostrils back into my stupid head and summoned the Animal Gods the cat under the bed the fly on the ceiling the frog in the marram grass I will stand on the marble steps of Terrible America in my navy blue nurse cape and starched white cap where our forgotten broken orphaned terrorized children crouch on sand or in salt caves or on the streets or in schools children in cages children in dark forests I will tell them all I have loved you I love you 

I don't know what else to do