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1/6/15

Chris D’Errico

Skinwalker


In a fallen world, there are stories
from wicked ones. Heart-songs lost.
Chirrups. Cedar cairns, teeth of maize.
My thorax is a paranoiac sculpture.
Sting of nettle, sepia bark and juniper.
I will peel away. Burrow into privet.
A trick of light, fading in the vespers. 
Attenuate my ears with silk from larval
winters. Feral palms. Dewy spurs.
Thunderbirds, painted arroyos, dust.
Purple flesh, slouching mules, feral
inside the corral where the sheep were
herd. Bald, silent. Shadowed. Now,  
the blue grind of an accordion. Feint
crackle of tobacco. I am the twang
of a harmonica. What has been denied
has been denied by fate and character.
By feather, glistening bone and flesh.
God's eye yarn, nose to a blade of grass.
Bees rustled inside the knot of a willow.
An eagle chortling, swooping over
the mesa. Nestled in a sienna grotto,
my beak grafts heliotropes. Death
rattle chorus. In a lycanthropic squat,
I play hurt. I am a lump of carrion
on the peaks of mushroomed rocks.
In a fallen world, blood is substrate
and tears reek of belonging. The buzz
of whiskey. Straw hats lay around
a campfire. Silver cups, leather hands,
smoke and swagger. Root chickory
in a dented tin, black as a helicopter.
Lizard-cold under a skull-white moon.
Muted, I am a cactus. Pupil of diamond
and blade of a shoulder. Spiders build
webs in eye sockets. Quiet as a blown
tire. Bullet of thistle, ash and horn.


Chris D’Errico’s writing has appeared in various print journals and online magazines, such as: Otoliths, CounterPunch, Misfitmagazine and Weirdyear. He has published several poetry collections, including "Vegas Implosions and Exterminator Chronicles" (Virgogray Press, 2012). Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, D'Errico lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with his wife and a small clouder of house cats. For more, visit www.clderrico.com. 

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