They say black dogs are the devil's work

They say the same thing about people like me

(I mean the lefthandedness).

My hand, ink-smudged,

(it is dry and darkened - as if bloodstains.

The only remains of the will I have just left. It will be immortalized in the papers tomorrow)

pushes your cold head backwards.

Your neck bears no collar. No name.

I give you mine. In this hedgerow, we become the same creature

Living solely for futile chase. The instinct.

Chasing a flying object because the wind around it whispers

like it has wings.

I christen you with the burden I could not bear

As if it will allow your body a last warm breath.

I take on your sufferance. I take Chase.

You, nameless. Should you baptise me Chase?

Or Hunt. Cruelty. Curiosity.

If you ever knew family;

Worse still, the betrayal born from such a thing.

Your body remains unmarred.

Sickness, I add from your list of ever-growing sorrows;

(I scratch out Wrath),

so your last moments may become my new life

and mine, yours.

In this bramble-stricken churchyard,

I become a new man.

I impart unto you a family; the title of beloved daughter,

that will not imprison you.

I trade with you to walk a free man. Burden for burden.

I glean each new method of fatality from you

Like fae, blood-sucking and leechlike,

They are each reverent, and mine so we may depart anew:

I ritualize what little I have left,

Lay you in a ditch by the roadside

Anoint your downy body in rainwater and blackberry juice,

and incense smoke from a cigarette. I baptise your canine soul with the last of my old humanity,

You have given me yours, that so valuableand sacred.

On your headstone, I give you mine. My name. My heaviest burden.

Inscribed with all I have carried this long, for you;

Destiny.