A shriek, dawn-like, birdless—an ordained
stratum—pulsing canticle of the numen.
The chant coarsely flung at the bosky ridges
of shattered clavicle—skull doused in lacquer.
Hear into the negative of bone the annals of a hut,
lamina of guttural gowk.
Fluted brinks of obsidian
cloaked dimly in canon—clamor, mist, shaping the glum
worship. The rite of splay—to utter a corpse to dazzle—
entombing the nebulous flesh in funerary hum, a syllabic urn.
Copyright © 2023 by Santee Frazier. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 21, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.