C. L. O’Dell
Raging Deaf Wild
Nothing meant more than landing in your footprint with two feet,
the catch of your walking away. I learned to never point a gun
at your back, to own my eyes like a wolf owns its teeth.
What is longing but the scent of leaves beneath me and in my mouth,
the taste of bone, the trail of blood we dogged until the red
lost its glow. Hawk in a sycamore: the sky’s true heart.
All of my childhood in one white skull. Say it was about the embrace,
leafing what shadows us, spanning wings on a slab of ledge rock.
Tell me some desires have to be nailed down, keeping only the head,
knowing that in these woods I have the only view.
C. L. O'Dell's poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, New England Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Best New Poets, among others. He is founder and editor of The Paris-American.
Return to November 2020 Edition
Nothing meant more than landing in your footprint with two feet,
the catch of your walking away. I learned to never point a gun
at your back, to own my eyes like a wolf owns its teeth.
What is longing but the scent of leaves beneath me and in my mouth,
the taste of bone, the trail of blood we dogged until the red
lost its glow. Hawk in a sycamore: the sky’s true heart.
All of my childhood in one white skull. Say it was about the embrace,
leafing what shadows us, spanning wings on a slab of ledge rock.
Tell me some desires have to be nailed down, keeping only the head,
knowing that in these woods I have the only view.
C. L. O'Dell's poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, New England Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Best New Poets, among others. He is founder and editor of The Paris-American.
Return to November 2020 Edition