15 September 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 3

Not here, not dead.

– for my brother

That summer was wheat

colored, rattler skins hanging paper thin


on the corral. Smoking hot luckys, the sandpaper filled

my young lungs. Watching him make 'em heave,


like the dead baby snake he'd kill

again and again because you can't kill 'em once.


No—the nerves keep 'em shaking, and so

if you take a shovel and split the body, bi-


furcate him, trifurcate him, his little teeth still spit

hot wet and his rattler still


dances in the tall grass.

About the author:

Nik De Dominic is a writer, living and studying in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. However good the tea may be, California will always be his home.

For further reading:

Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 7, No. 3, where "Not here, not dead." ran on September 15, 2007. List other work with these same labels: poetry, unpublished writers.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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