after Onfim
Mouth of fire
I roared at my mother
my father. On all fours
I ran into the garden. Birches
bent over me and they were
not an alphabet. Branches.
My fingers became
uncountable
claws and the marks they left
in birches were nothing
but wounds. They calcified behold my
horns my body becoming
hard like time like mud my smile
is a snarl mouth
of fire. My
bones are in agony
splintered bark over a
tree’s growing body. My tail beats earth
taut skin of drum bleeding gums
my tongue flicks a tooth from it
lands like a letter
in mud. I howl.
An army besieges
me. Tall birches. The bark
my skin my slow growing bones my heart
will not fear. I am my mouth
mouth of fire and in
my hand is a spear.
Mark Everett Wittmer is a poet and an MFA student at the University of Oregon. His work has appeared in Plume, Apocalypse Confidential, Barnstorm, and elsewhere.
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