Claire Hero
“[The night was animal]”
from afterpastures

The night was animal, was owlmaw
& preyclaw. Half-wild, I shrank
from its grasping, the moon scything
through fir limbs. Half-tame, I
heard the scuttle of blood—

                                        Crackbone, I
followed your footsteps.

I followed your footsteps, I opened the night-box,
I scalped the meatbeasts, I bewildered my body
with hair & claw –
                                        humping the sacrifice
through the chambers of night

& still the forest continues, the linespeed
never slows. I am up to my ankles,
hand cramping on the knife,—

                                        Where is death?
Where does death enter our lives?

Death is a house inside the forest.
Come. I am made of many doors.

Caketrain is a literary journal and press based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our interest is in bringing you, reader, the very best in contemporary creative writing, full stop. Our goals are for each issue of our journal to submerge you in a birthing tank for gelatinous language monsters, young masses of tentacular foci undulating as directed (in all, at once) by our eclectic stable of contributors; for each new book we publish to seduce and ensnare you, sometimes intangibly, always undeniably; and for you, reader, to be able to draw at least one passage from our banks that prods your mind with such precision and power that it feels as if it was written for your eyes alone. To wit and to whet, here is a snippet, a slight nip of our delicious lit mix:

Copyright 2003-2006 Caketrain Journal and Press. Rights to literature revert to their respective authors.
ISSN 1547-6839.

How's Our Driving?
Send an email to
[email protected].

Powered by Blogger
Hosting by Doteasy
Audio player by del.icio.us