The Mark of Cain

The future impresses itself across my forehead
like
the mark of Cain.
My temple spurts blood
-sweet drops-
which thicken and conglomerate into shiny silver balls
that roll like sinister mercury across hard wooden floors.

I long for the mercy of the dungeon
of not knowing,
of having a skull as dull and
as dimwitted
as the cold stone walls.
The future unknowable.
The past irrelevant.
Standing and staring at the other
pair of empty manacles and saying:
“This is what happens to other men.”

My rage burns in pillars of fire all around me.
Salt stings the
soles of my feet.
Sometimes we have only our burning flesh
to remind us that we are alive.

Indian Throne

Through fern infested forest, along the
trail where lichen-speckled boulders lie, past the rock
where ancient Nipmucks
ground their corn,
the rock itself a giant mortar,
the pestle flung carelessly away years later
by a bored hiker who stopped to pee.

Past all of these resides an
Ice Age throne flung down in the empty
forest by a passing glacier.

You don’t need to
squint in the
smoky
sunlight of a New England autumn to see
the Indian boys who must have sat on that rocky chair
many times before passing by.

Indian boys, yes, and no other–
for no tribal chief is known to have made this place
his home.

Here it remains a trailside throne.

The Aftermath

We speak now only in bullets.
There is only the purity of the gun.

Words fall like cinders from
dry, chafing mouths.

The belly opens to reveal an
empty, heaving womb.

We cannot fill the void.
We cannot.

Anthony J. Dennis is an American author, lawyer, poet and human rights activist. His poetry has appeared in a variety of literary magazines over the years including, most recently, The Scriblerus (Fall, 2018). He is the author of three nonfiction books and co-author of three more. He has also authored dozens of articles in academic journals, newspapers and magazines. Dennis holds degrees in law, literature and history from Northwestern University School of Law (J.D., 1988) and Tufts University (B.A., 1985).