Graveside Press: If: Gathered Here Today (anthology)

My poem “If” is included in Gathered Here Today: An open casket of art and poetry, an illustrated anthology produced by Graveside Press. If you like spooky poetry, you can buy a copy (it’s absolutely bursting with unsettling gems.)

An aside – lots of web traffic lately from west central Florida. Welcome!

If

…the cold black blood

and castoffs of gristle 

and forgettable bits of flesh

paused their dying

and reversed to pool inward

and moved up off the linoleum 

in an other-way funnel cloud

and slicked backwards up 

the cleaver’s edge and

dripped 

one by one

single file back into the neck of the pheasant and

the wound self-stitched and 

sealed and

the feathers laid flat and

the eyes went wet and burned with life, 

would the butcher repent,

carry it back to its nest,

or would he kill it again,

being inherently irreverent?