Lie to Me
Tracey Knapp
Tell
me about the bluefish, sword-sharks scarfing
human torsos, naked and plunging
from fishing
boats like live bait ten miles off the muggy coast. Tell
me about the mangled weeds raked in
by the coarse beaches, the fish bones
bleaching,
the old shells stuck in the secret cove. Tell
me about the time you caught a snake
with a stick, how its fisty head
swung at your arm. Tell me how you found that snake dead
on dry grass
the next day, ten feet from where you speared it.
How you
wore it around your neck like ironic feathers. Tell me
how you hid the rotting body beneath
the porch in a black plastic bag.
Give me its skull.
© Tracey Knapp
Tracey Knapp's poetry has appeared in La Petite Zine, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Midday Moon, and assembled in the limited-edition hand-crafted book Match in a Bottle. She has also has work forthcoming in Sewanee Theological Review.
She is currently an MA student at Ohio University.
|
