WINTER CROPLAND
I fled the devil
Where he stood
Among the turning crows
Over the tired field. Caw
They call. They call,
I feel an answer in me,
Gathered in my stomach:
I am made
Of a terrible substance,
Old, hotter
Than the dribbling shit
Of fever. Strangling
Deliverer, I am brittle.
Bright-Finger, I am
A grafting, a child.
Cloak me, father.
Mother, love me:
I have done wrong.
Corn stubble stuck
In crusted snow,
Row on row of corn
Through which the crows
Caw and pick, crush
Kernels pinched
In black beaks, flat-
Black, like the cleft
Of a goat’s hoof.
My mouth tastes so much of salt.
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D. ERIC PARKISON received his MA in English at the University of Rochester. His poetry has appeared in The Squaw Valley Poetry Review, Zyzzyva, American Chordata, and Zymbol, among others. He completed his MFA in Poetry at Boston University in 2016. He is a contributor at Sharkpack Poetry Review, and lives in Boston, MA, where he is a bookseller.
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Read more by D. Eric Parkison:
Two poems in The Columbia Review
Three poems in American Chordata