If you twist the blade behind your knee,
What color blood comes out?
When racked with grief and racked with pain,
What language do you shout?
If all your husks were peeled away,
Would there still shine a soul?
Without your masks without your pomp
What keeps you one and whole?
Sometimes I cannot recognize
The creature in your face
Sometimes a reptile’s cold cold blood
Will pulse through your embrace
And so I bleed and so I scream
as you hold me in thrall
And with your beastlike stare, I doubt
that you’re a man at all.