Incantations over formica at
Carefully chosen hours we define the old
Route 66 the
World serpent shattered now like the spine of the
Carpathians, the vertebrae of the Andes we are
Black top and burned coffee, we are pie 24 hours a day we
Chart sunrises and arrange stones we run
Fingertips over petroglyphs, over countertop scratches, our
prayer
Songs call cactus flowers out of the lizard jeweled night
the breath of the
Lungless, that other beat of a heart that doesn’t keep the
Blood warm and the faint outline of an old-time eye that
Stares from an unclenched fist.
Copyright
© Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kim
Shuck is a writer, editor and visual artist of Tsalagi and Polish ancestry. She
holds an MFA in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University. Her first solo
book of poetry Smuggling Cherokee won the 2005 Diane Decorah
award from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas and was published by
Greenfield Review Press in 2006. Her first book of prose, Rabbit Stories, came out in February of 2013.
Her second solo book of poetry, Clouds Running In, forthcoming in 2014, includes drawings by the brilliant Cumbrian artist, Marcer Campbell.
Visit Kim at www.kimshuck.com
