I know the voices. Know the voices of the soil's darkness. The voices crammed together in the air around our ears. Voices unhearable in stone like stones in clasped hands. They tell stories of endless brutality, of the greed of jaws and the anger of bloodied feet. There is fire so sudden it does not exist. Before tenderness was a possibility, this fire was alive in our lidded eyes. I close my eyes and hear the guns screaming our names.