Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convirtiéndose en characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
Death in the Spicerack
I saw it only once
_ _couched
Between the parsley flakes
And a box of cloves,
Just to the left of the basil,
Wet and dark,
Tearing with needle teeth
And tiny baby hands
At a bulb of garlic.
It happened just after
The news of a death in
My family had come
Scampering out of the telephone
And on past my ear.
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W. M. Stahl is writing full time. He is working concurrently on poems, short fictions, a novel and occasionally churning out an article, “to pacify my creditors.” (1975)