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by Duncan Slagle begins with Cain & Abel winding blood-ways out of the womb. In the garden birds scythe the air harvesting cruelty. Mechanics rewired for an age in which men make death for good stories. I know I am my father’s appellation, shocked wide awake by the grey bath- water, instructed to scrub the wings of vultures clean. I face the men who rename already-named animals & leave an ark, spinning to splinters inside this fear. I pulled weeds with my feet the day my father slapped me so hard my lip split, jeweling like a pomegranate. That fruit which ruined a bloodline, filling the mouth of Eve, gums sugar-stung, body gowned in empire, burying heirs. Her first son laying his hands on another’s throat. I savor the pith to start, flinching sobs like clockwork. My clotting eyes— sockets glossed with rage to notice: At the end of it all, one brother laughs while the other picks teeth from the dirt.  Duncan Slagle is a queer poet and performer from Alaska & then Minnesota. Duncan is the author of FATHER HUNT (L'Éphémère Review) & currently attends the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a First Wave Scholar studying Ancient Greek, Latin, and Creative Writing. The winner of the 2018 Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize, the 2018 Mikrokosmos Poetry Prize, and a 2018 Best of the Net nominee, more of Duncan's work can be found online at duncanslagle.com. |