Blood Song


My loneliness solved
imagining God cut

too. Our confusion,
our soft violence.

The Mississippi
in one hand.

Our loneliness erased
by its endless flaying:

iron ore & clay
crimsoning the banks

gaped wide. Watch
the slow unearthing,

the warm ache. This is
our communion, you & I.

If you give me a river,
I'll give you a blade.




John Allen Taylor's poems are published in Booth, Nashville Review, Zone 3, Muzzle, Rhino, and other places. He currently lives in Boston, MA and serves as Redivider's poetry editor and Ploughshares's senior poetry reader. He grows vegetables and brews kombucha. Say hello @johna_taylor.