My Love is a Red, Red, Chupacabra

You don’t know that there isn’t a Chupacabra,
therefore that’s what I am: Goat Sucker,
always after more pulse. Spectral creature,
the size of a skinny bear,
with a row of spines reaching from neck to tail.

If not brought to earth by livestock-hating-aliens
then what am I except love and what’s that?
A varmint striped by mange and shivering in the desert.

Under the moon, your bodies shine gray-blue
as you search for a place of convergence.
Meanwhile my short front legs and long back legs
go springing through the burrows
in search of that inexpressible want.

Some have cataloged the soul, too,
as a contemporary legend,

but when you wrap your legs around
that swain of yours,
I (Chupacabra) swallow you
as you (Chupacabra) swallow him,

until you both lie limp as dead goats on the ground.