Bite
       

The brake fern is in leaf   One last walk in the woods
on the way to the dance at the armory

She saw a few hare a goldfinch   a heron
nettle creepers   partridges and lapwings

They swam here in this English pond   dozing in the grass
reading Cream Magazine     All those naked boys

in their jacked-up courage   Morse code of tapping rain

I was calling the tawny owls   You said just moan or cry out
and they come     Saturday night   a hard-core band

and I was knocked out by the combat boot of a boy
in a stage dive   Dust of history on my cheek   a bomb

went off   at the Chelsea barracks     nails
flew through the walls

two people dead   I came to   you dragging me by
my ankles   the way my brother once roped the calf

his delicate fingers pressing against its neck
O how your body troubled me   troubled   lampshade

of flesh between us   shadow puppet on a screen
I see you under the spotlights there you are   singing

in a photograph   on a stage   held mid-scream and I'm not
allowed to hear   I'm not worshipping you   I'm finding

the soft spot I can sink my teeth into

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Copyright © 2020 Heather Derr-Smith All rights reserved
from The Literary Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission