by Daniel Hardisty

exit wound
 

home sick
soil sick
sick in love again

nosferatu
leaves two
beads of blood

nippling
the naked white
of her neck

she will not live
or die
or live

at night
the wolves
howl

their short
long short
howl

my step
father told
me the wolfman

had been
driven mad
by the moon

by which
he meant
mad by women

two silver
bullets might
suffice

through the
heart
to finish him

fentanyl
and ice chips
they nipped

at my liver
with a scrapping
needle

and told
me not
to carry a book

or a daughter
for twenty
four hours

I looked
beneath
round dressings

found two distant
equal
punctures

made by silver
or tooth
incision

I imagined
an exit wound
at my back

its plume
of red
tubercular cough

and my body
blown
through

like an egg
pricked
both ends

at Beth Israel
I wait
for a car

alone
at six thirty
and laugh

that this is
how
my story ends

half in love
even now
with moons

and pictures
and
brambled

men
mad in forests
the castles

the split
scientist
the risen dead

the towers
and skies
are empty

my driver
makes
small talk

as I cry
at simplicity
of voice

bluster
of morning
radio

adrift
each soul
reporting

Previous / Next

Daniel Hardisty was born in the UK and became a US citizen in 2015. Work has appeared in Poetry London, the London Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, the Spectator and on BBC Radio 4. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University. His first collection, Rose with Harm, is forthcoming in the UK in 2020.