15 September 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 3

Not here, not dead.

by NIK DE DOMINIC

– 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.