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Redemption




I felt gutshot buffalo herds pitch into black ravines,
and the wool blanket that had covered my dreaming
lay kicked off alongside the bed I’d climbed into;
my white skin trembled in the winter room’s dark air.

Wind pecked at my iced-over windows like wild, night chickens
who’d heard from the spirit of the one I’d eaten
they’d all be be-headed by the end of the year,
their beaks ticking like clock strokes to get at me first.

That was the night the wild pony I’d tried to capture
and break whinnied close by in a cliff-top mist,
so unlike the wolf’s frenchhorn-call haunting humans
who make up legends to listen for their own souls through —

it was saying goodbye,
and I began thereafter to dream without jealousies.




Author notes

published
The Tampa Review
Spring/Summer ‘99 issue

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Comments


  • iamvered silver member
    March 1

    Edit | Reply

    I like it all... except...

    Hi Danny... great work... but for one image...

    It's so haunting and richly imaged and serious but the phrase "wild, night chickens" literally made me laugh aloud. Are there such things as wild chickens?

    I hope you don't think I'm being contentious, it's a great poem, but I'm still snickering over that image, and I just think it wants something more reverent, eerie, somber...

    I look forward to reading more from you.

    language: 3, rhythm: 4, subject: 5, tone: 4, form: 5.

  • kittyeaglepig gold member
    August 15, 2009
    Edit | Reply
    Hello Clarice, It's good to see you again.