Verdad Magazine Volume 29
Fall 2020, Volume 29
Poetry by Daniel Edward Moore
Reckoning
Let’s skip your charming retrospect.
I’ve studied you prophetically
in Testaments clashing on pages turned
by dead men’s hands making ruin
what suffering calls the sacred.
Isn’t that your favorite doctrine
for the kill, the reason nameless
bullets travel lightly through the skin
like Holy Spirit buckshot from
the preacher’s perfect mouth?
I’ve observed the slavery of words
lashed with the sting of reckoning,
how lips confess defeat the moment
eyes roll back like cigarettes at night
in the prison yard. Let’s pretend
that tenderness is why the sky
turns blue. Take off your shirt,
let your chest open like the sea.
I will walk on you.
BIO: Daniel lives in Washington on Whidbey Island.
His poems are forthcoming in The Cape Rock, Kestrel, RipRap, The Timberline Review, River Heron Review, Passengers Journal, Coachella Review, Ocotillo Review, Nebo Literary Journal and Main Street Rag.
He is the author of the chapbook “Boys“ (Duck Lake Books) and 'Waxing the Dents,' a full length collection from Brick Road Poetry Press.