School for the Carrion
The Sacrifice

School for the Carrion

Reflections
from the bleak,
dipped in mint 
and ambergris,

I teach advanced tedium
to the rotting youth.
Sentence
after paltry sentence
a foresight gleaned 
from the muzzled growl
of the period’s 
darkness.
My words
won’t resolve
the boil
in this beggar’s
eye.

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Without going outside

Consider shame

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The professor waves adieu on his way to the bait shop

Mommy dines on canned baloney by moonlight

The tarpit tickles our toes

The Sacrifice

Today I will watch Tarkovsky.
First I must drop a neighbor in the fire.

I find a hand, curled with a wish.
I write a shopping list in gold and rhyme

(disguised by disgust) 
in the dark frontier down the alley behind the bar.

I want what you want.
To win the game of someone else’s love.

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LUCAS BURKETT is the recipient of the 2019 Wolfson Poetry Award. His work has appeared in Fanzine,  Philosophical Idiot, and other publications. He lives with his fiancée in Goshen, Indiana.

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