Clusters of puma negotiate the dark, I run with the wolves all night, outside gold walls and the wisp of a tired garden, the barbaric and brutish savages and their gore masks, horribly crude weapons and infernal howls, mismatched armor, the head of a Roman Centurion on a pole, tongue protruding and eyes far away, they dance naked in drunken hives of flesh under the kissed spark of white-hot lightning, I walk among them like a child-like wraith, empty palms skyward, unseen; and the color of newborn rain clouds.