What terrible thing
he eventually did
to become so corrupt
we’ll never know.
Perhaps there was no intent
just a drift toward gore
and a failure to reflect
on what was happening to him.
In blind flight from feeling
yet craving others
perhaps he finally lit
upon a solution -
mistaking the sap
for the essence -
of drinking their blood.
Certainly his first taste
of women taken young
disappointed him. Doubly
penetrated they were not
one drop sweeter
than drained old men.
That once clean
fastidious boy now sleeps
on dirt, restless with dreams
of stakes and crosses
and sacred waters. Still he rises
to a kind of elegance
in transmuting to bat.
68