David Appelbaum

Caucus

Seventeen crows
they caucused there
like pros
around a possum corpse
& I, the eighteenth
came in fog
that once clung aimlessly
to dry brush
& inkstone
as one of Buddha’s sermons
but that earnest parley
pressed me to give the habit up
for a say
in what mattered,
my heart,
for what sliver
what gasp of air
makes difference enough
between the still-life
& this real death
this morsel before us
if it isn’t who
gets first taste
& who last?

Serpentine

I found a flattened coil
cheap belt metal
from a wasp waist

& that day tried
in an effort
to relate to
the young snake
held the musky head
in my mouth
& tasted

what the oak was
a forked tongue in heaven
where the road
slithered by a black desert
how God gleamed
or the devil
& every face of stone
knew my sleek belly
for what the race
was

& I ripped
with pure motion
a wrist
beneath the great being
who naming me
watched & prayed
& I marveled
at the fear & loathing of
his warm veins
& his love
for me
those contraries
that sentience
you are

David Appelbaum is a hiker and biker, the past editor of Parabola Magazine, and publisher of Codhill Press. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Commonweal, Dogzplot, and Verse Daily. contact

Copyright 2River. Please do not copy or use without permission.