• Brood

    Donika Kelly

    Fall 2017

    My chest is earth 

    I meant to write my chest is warm
    but earth will do

                               to exhume a heart

        Beat

    I meant to write
    breathe

                   Did you know I was alive the whole time

    I was alive in the ground but torpor

                But torpor

    Slowed beat

    My chest filled like a jar with dirt

    I mean
          dearth 

    For slow months at rest in the hole
    I’d made in myself
                A frozen ground
          A ground in thaw

    Donika Kelly is the author of Bestiary (Graywolf 2016), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award. She teaches at St. Bonaventure University.

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