Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

I haven’t killed a single thing in months and  

hand on heart 

It’s getting tiresome. 

I take soft steps in my rooms,  

delicately I scoop the scorpion out  

from under its chair. 

Fire ants feed on the soft 

of my thigh and I resist flicking,

flattening them with my nail. 

I haven’t harmed one living thing apart

from in my dreams. 

I greet the salamanders with a bow  

and smile showing my teeth 

No offence… no offence! 

My axe, it grows dusty. 

Meanwhile I dream of goat.

In the field of my dreams 

I am butchering the ancient woods,

stoppering the rivers 

and suffocating the flame-pink brain coral. 

I have taken to a breakfast of

warm eggs from the nests. 

The black snakes tremble 

when I’m close and I eat and eat  

until I’m full of goat then 

awake in a fervour on my thin mattress  

the dream curtain still fluttering – 

         half in half out of the killings. 

The priest determines that dreaming is 

not cheating as we count my miserable sins.  

How harmless can we really be? 

Blessed woman, soon you’ll cradle your 

son on the untried temple steps.