What Rough Beast | Poem for December 26, 2017

Abigail Conklin
The Most Recent Execution

Last night, I dreamt
I was waiting my turn
beneath an axe.

Each of us knelt.
The steel freed thick slices
from the bases of our skulls.

It wasn’t until I was under
them that I began to beg.
And they grinned their sick
grins. And they swung.

 

Abigail Conklin’s poetry has appeared on Bonus Cut and The Bridge and is forthcoming in The Lampeter Review and Flume. She lives in New York City where she works in education and curriculum development.

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