Only Skin

And there was a booming above you
That night, black airplanes flew over the sea
And they were lowing and shifting like
Beached whales
Shelled snails
As you strained and you squinted to see
The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry

You froze in your sand shoal
Prayed for your poor soul
Sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl
And when the bread broke, fell in bricks of wet smoke
My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke

Then there was a silence you took to mean something:
Mean, run, sing
For alive you will evermore be
And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulkinHas gone east
While you're left to explain them to me
Released from their hairless and blind cavalry