Fall 2020, Volume 29

Poetry by Daniel Edward Moore

Reckoning

Let’s skip your charming retrospect.
                                  I’ve studied you prophetically
in Testaments clashing on pages turned
                            by dead men’s hands making ruin

what suffering calls the sacred.

Isn’t that your favorite doctrine
                             for the kill, the reason nameless
bullets travel lightly through the skin
                                 like Holy Spirit buckshot from

the preacher’s perfect mouth?

I’ve observed the slavery of words
                          lashed with the sting of reckoning,
how lips confess defeat the moment
                      eyes roll back like cigarettes at night

in the prison yard. Let’s pretend
                               that tenderness is why the sky
turns blue. Take off your shirt,
                              let your chest open like the sea.

I will walk on you.

 

 

 

BIO: Daniel lives in Washington on Whidbey Island.

His poems are forthcoming in The Cape Rock, Kestrel, RipRap, The Timberline Review, River Heron Review, Passengers Journal, Coachella Review, Ocotillo Review, Nebo Literary Journal and Main Street Rag.

He is the author of the chapbook “Boys“ (Duck Lake Books) and 'Waxing the Dents,' a full length collection from Brick Road Poetry Press.