Fear: After Fear by Trenton Doyle Hancock, 2008
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- FearAfter Fear by Trenton Doyle Hancock, 2008
You build a starship that runs on blood. Shell-shaped. In shades of white & warm. You build it slantwise from your inner skull. From bulkhead. From inner bone. Slant, you hang it on the pink-dripped air. Hull & hatch & engine room. It spirals inward like an egg, or half-an-egg. So you climb in, hand over hand. Gunner, helm. The fuselage all bone & slats of scab. Your festive will expands. Get down. Kneel into your work. As if your bones were balm, or palms to lay across a holy path. Your knees get scuffed; they hum with blood. You build. Not touching land or hands of lost ones lost on land. You drowned out there. In foam, or film. You drowned out there. [End Page 836]
Kiki Petrosino is author of two books of poems, Fort Red Border (2009) and Hymn for the Black Terrific (2013). She teaches creative writing at the University of Louisville.
