scorpion
Raymond McDaniel
continent's face turned from the sun
posture rotation to her nighttime hours
show me
and indigo the killer steps barefoot and backwards
to the abbey wall
walks one foot behind the other counters corners and breech
four-cornered fortification around the abbess
whose gaze never slips from indigo incapable of misstep or pause
lifting her foot from the scorpion unseen yet spared
(proffer poison
onyx armament and arch)
it is very beautiful
the penitent nods
hastens her heel to the scorpion's body:
beautiful.
© Raymond McDaniel
Raymond McDaniel, native of Florida, currently teaches in the Sweetland Writing Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he also hosts the reading series
at the legendarily independent Shaman Drum Bookshop. He also writes for FENCE
Magazine's "The Constant Critic" -- www.constantcritic.com. He has
work appearing next in "American Letters & Commentary" and his "Murder",
a 2003 National Poetry Series Winner, is forthcoming from Coffee House Press in
August 2004.
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