Poem in the Ninth Month

Beth Ann Fennelly
Facebook icon Share via Facebook Twitter icon Share via Twitter

Now that they’ve x-rayed
the mummified female crocodile
in the Egypt room in the British Museum
they’ve found
a baby crocodile, mummified,
inserted far back in her throat.

Just so, little one, we swim
toward the next life.

They will set the clocks to zero
when you open your eyes
at what they’ll call the world, not
the afterworld.

More Reads
Poetry

Confession of a Novel Reader

“Cease wholly to read fiction the moment you find that it begins to render... the common duties of life irksome, or injure you in any way.” —J. T. Crane, father of ...

Poetry

Three Songs from the End of History

Hua Hsu
Poetry

Letter from the Mountains

There was a message. I have forgotten it. There was a journey to make. It did not come to anything. But these nights, my friend, under the iron roof Of this old rabbiters’ ...

More