Altivolant
Muzzle flash paths a bullet through pith to pit, brain halved. In his hometown,in a field, in brush with the scent of deer, surrounded by azaleas, we found him and sleptnext to him. In moonlight we clutch his corpse. Get the birds. Get us in a grovewith nightjars to take him elsewhere, where no one else will see. Rename us: has-beens.Protriptyline talked him out of his body. We search the gutfuls of dirt between usand find an animal in amber. A pill. A casing. His bullet-brawn. Not him. His closedcasket closes our eyes to what he’d done to his body. We each havetwo eyes toward the past, which turns away. Swing that worlddead ahead. Insomnia waits for us: wants to dream.
Feature Date
- February 2, 2021
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Copyright © 2020 by Jordan Keller-Martinez
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
December 2020
Chicago, Illinois
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Founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. Harriet Monroe’s “Open Door” policy, set forth in Volume I of the magazine, remains the most succinct statement of Poetry’s mission: to print the best poetry written today, in whatever style, genre, or approach.
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