June 2021
Bio Note: I attempt to help our Veterans heal as an RN in the Seattle area. In former lives I taught high school, practiced acupuncture, and managed aquatic centers. I try to be funny for my lovely kids and wife, but I am mostly arthritic and cranky. My third book of poetry, These Hands of Myrrh, is upcoming from Kelsay Books.
the summoner
when my one-year-old son
announces WARLDAGA
with authority and circumstance
from his high chair as he slathers
meat in his fist
i half expect Grendel
(or Mothra for that matter)
to unseal our wood container
with a whoosh of rotbreath
and for morning dread
to rain sideways into our kitchen
me brandishing a pink plastic spoon
against the fur-feathered claws
which snap timber
and linoleum
my wife runs into the room
with a baseball bat and starts swinging
at the goat-horned snout
and i am impressed at her accuracy
she takes out the left eye with the first go
the summoner grins on his parapet
his words dripping with saltpork
i don’t know how he is not scared
(he is terrified of the hand-held
vacuum)
and i just stand there
the floor caving in around my
phone
©2021 Scott Ferry
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