Our Love as Lead Belly or
       

What howling, what teeth pick
& guitar, chords
to slash across our limbs
against their lynch mobs,

howling what
homicide, love shack
south bound steel
train, fallen
caribou, rip the flesh
& feed the blind & yelping
tongues, in smoky lounge
this skin, we open
our bodies & shed
this myth, finger
the frets of our necks,
in the dark den, hackles
raised, naked
& discordant
we wake, like a broken
xylophone, mixed up
conjoined skeletons.
Praise our gnawed bones.

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Copyright © 2018 Sean Thomas Dougherty All rights reserved
from The Second O of Sorrow
BOA Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission