'Sortes Sanctorum': A Poem by E. Samples

SORTES SANCTORUM

It is true what they say about the Diviner of Nine Halls

it rattles as it walks

it spits as it breathes

She speaks in chanting chimes waiting for the devil’s cats

it secrets as it shakes

it reddens as it drinks

Drying leaves in the shortened day

crunching as it sweeps

Through bogging drill and smeltering

asylum as it hums

Beneath her hunting moon

Inverted friar’s lantern

Calls the page, the passage

Florescence as it reads

---

E. Samples is one part West Virginia Mountain Blue ink, two parts Kentucky Bluegrass Black ink, and a medicinal dash of Tennessee Red-inked Whiskey. Currently living in Southern Indiana, her spectrum is shifting to include accents of cardinal, sunflower, and sweet corn. Her poetry appears in fws: a journal of literature & art, skin issue. She is on twitter @emilysamples

Photograph from the Library of Congress.