Bad Sheep

Midnight’s merely blue, but me, me, me, I’m through and through sloe, cracked soot- on-a-boot, nicotine spat, licorice whip. You can scratch, scratch, scratch but I stay underskin true to ebony, ink, crowberry, pitch; hoist me up by my hooves and shake till I’m shook, I’m still chock full of coke, fuliginous murk. O there’s swart in my soul, coal by the bag, cinders and slag, scoriac grit, so please come, comb through my fleece with hands pallid as snow and watch how they grow tarry, raven, stygian, ashed— or, if you wish, clean me with bleach I won’t flinch, just char down to a core of caliginous marrow, pure carbon, atramentous, utterly piceous, shadowed, and starless, each clumpity clump and eclipse of my heart raptly re-burnishing a woolgather dark.