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Published: Wed Apr 15 2020
Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convirtiéndose en characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
AGNI 91 Animals Nature On Poetry
Unregenerate Pastoral

_             _ Star thistle, milk vetch,
crooked salt licks by
_                     _the fence posts. Silk-

_             _ worms levitate: a maze
-like splendor over
_                     _slender grasses. Black

_             _ flies testing the horse
pond. Buckled shards
_                     _of the lightning-struck

_             _ tree limbs metastasize
fodder for the lobster
_                     _mushrooms. This late

_             _ spring day flesh has been
invented for. Now every
_                     _clover along the lawn’s

_             _ its own thick centerfold
in a honeybee magazine.
_                     _Tick season; barb wire.

_             _ This carbuncle of cow
knuckle. Muck slough.
_                     _Chicken bones. Cracked

_             _ robins’ eggs; nest stuff.
Old beaters on cement
_                     _blocks. Liquor bottles

_             _ smashed on blacktop.
I’ll cop to the lewd and
_                     _ugly in it. More brownish

_             _ precipitates that darken
down the river’s scum
_                     _sumptuous with phosphates.

_             _ Dead roots. Good taste
should not be wasted
_                     _making art. Just step out

_             _ of the way, and beauty
does its thing. It might care
_                     _less who sticks around.

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Will Cordeiro’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Best New Poets, The Cincinnati Review, AGNI, Copper Nickel, Poetry Northwest, Sycamore Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. Recipient of a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, he co-edits Eggtooth Editions and lives in Guadalajara, Mexico. (updated 4/2020)

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