Today's poem is by Zachary Medlin

The Thing
        after John Carpenter

Let's call it Body Horror, this thing in my blood
that brings the cold in, lets me feel less human.
Let's call that angelic, an escape from the bodies
whose wings boil with eyes bleeding gasoline.
I'll leap from their touch and the fire of being seen.
Call it rabid, my chest, when my ribs unhinge
like a jaw full of canines. I'll maul anyone trying
to restart my heart; they should know well enough
not to offer a hydrophobe water. You can call it
using, I'll call it escape, when my head tears away,
unfolding itself into a skittering, spidery thing.
Think of this as an invitation, think of it as hate,
when I flag down a bartender to get another drink.
Walle with me into a whiteout at the end of night.
Let's sit here for a minute together, we can be cool
as a young Kurt Russell passing a bottle of scotch
and watch flames devour whatever's still standing.

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Copyright © 2024 Zachary Medlin All rights reserved
from Beneath All Water
Conduit Books & Ephemera
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission