excerpt

venom

two men bitten,
venom in their blood
one killed his foe
with his hunting rifle
after its fangs hung in
the fabric of the leggins
he was wearing—
the corpse was sent
to the newspaper office,
measured to reach three foot two,
where they counted a dozen rattlers
the second bitten
while hard at work
knees crouched, back bent
painting baseboards
in a city house
stung by copperhead venom
indoors
forced to swallow
weeks of snake medicine
in a country
of poison and snakes
you learn early
not to panic,
to slit the wound
with the knife always in your pocket,
to suck the venom
and spit it far,
to never sit free
on a fallen log,
to never put your feet
anywhere you can’t see em,
to set fire to a spoon of new moonshine
and watch its clear blue burn,
to avoid the wagging tongues
of vicious gossip,
to dose yourself up
with strychnine slow and surely,
to listen for the rattle
of the devil at tent revival,
to never forget
you’re always walking with Death

ABOUT THE POET

Sarah Josephine Pennington (she/her) is a queer and disabled writer and artist from Louisville, KY by way of Appalachia. She studied creative writing while attending Bellarmine University and the University of Louisville and is an alum of the Tin House Winter Workshop and the Appalachian Writer's Workshop. Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Still: The Journal, The Anthology of Appalachian Writers, riddlebird, and Yellow Arrow Journal, and has been supported by the Kentucky Foundation for Women.