CORNUS
Christ’s crucifixion wood.
Fresh-cut is excrement scented.
Hecate’s hounds hash the berry-blood.
Woven bark bore tennis its first racquet.
Loom, arrow, tool, skewer.
Put the screw in the fruit
press.
Chaucerian vocabulary: whippletree,
bloodrag.
For pioneers, three steps:
1. peel bark,
2. bite twig,
3. scrub teeth.
David Brennan is the author of the poetry collection The White Visitation (BlazeVox Books) and the chapbook The Family Flamboyant (Brickhouse Books). His work has recently appeared in Action, Yes, PANK, Fact-Simile, Beeswax, Verse Daily and elsewhere. He lives in Virginia.