In One Small Bedroom, My Mother's Antlers
       

men wind
their hands
so tight
'round
my mother's
antlers
their crackle
is fresh
branch snap
is bough
to break
the arrow
shaft
lips of
brown bark
peeled back
a toothy
finish
each wipes
the blood
of his palms
off
on the back
of her
skull
it's not long
now
'till
men will squeeze
her bones so
tight those bones
they'll clatter
milky
worn dice
unclogged
from the cofferqam
of her throat
across my bedroom
floorboards
then won't
the rest
of this life
be just
one fucking
gamble.

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Copyright © 2019 Benjamin Naka-Hasebe Kingsley All rights reserved
from West Branch
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission