Featured Poem 5/21/04


GENERAL CURSE AGAINST ONE WHO HAS HARMED YOU

Fish will eat you
and your yellow coyote eyes
bubble to oyster jelly,
your rank vermicelli hair
bolt straight up in terror
on your death, death, deathbed
                    (sinner don’t wait
                    until it’s too late)

and still I will not forgive you,
you may have as many eyes
as hairs on your head
and fail to track the spell:
what went around will come around,
its foot will make no sound.
No use to hide in seams
where even a mole could not go.
Darkness doesn’t fall, it rises,
the milk you put to your lips
boils red in your belly overnight.
Back and front you suffer
in an ape suit of hives,
you’re a silver skeleton walking,
your marrow and bone shine
.


Margaret Benbow

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