Blinding the Crocodile
Rent from DeepDyve- Blinding the Crocodile
In those days, gods were called disposers.Lunch was always charred pork chinetopped with pithy wizened red fruit.Your mud brick house stayed legiblebetween flood and flood and floodwhile the fishermen tenderly plastered downthe eyes of the crocodile with mud.Whenever it took too long to sleepthey sent you more night by mail.A cut was made on the rump of a bullby the top of the tail if its lust lagged.Rain punctured the river from sterile heights.Virgins rowed hard with ebony oars.Any girl found with a forehead creasewas given a room where walls became jawsand if her thinking went on too longshe was labeled a new kind of delicacy [End Page 7]
Rennie Ament's work has appeared in Redivider, DIAGRAM, The Journal, Prelude, Sixth Finch, and Colorado Review, among others. She is winner of the 2018 Yellowood Prize in Poetry, a nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets, and has received fellowships from the Millay Colony, Saltonstall Foundation, New York State Summer Writers Institute, and Vermont Studio Center. She lives in Queens, New York, and can be found online at www.rennieament.com.
