When the priests, in their beads and capes
stitched from feral hides, led me under
the New England pines, they whittled the tip
of a sawn limb to gently press
up through ribs, and the ventricular hollow,
and on that spit, their meaty hands
dipped me in the river,
and as promised, I felt nothing
ever again
until you found me.
*Originally published in Sage Green Journal.
Michael Daley lives near Deception Pass and has published widely in journals and anthologies. His most recent collection of poems is Of a Feather (Empty Bowl, 2016).