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Natural Theology

Kylan Rice

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i.

Kicked a rockfish across the lake camp—
I swell to the brink of smoky nets,
drawling serration. Deer pack
heat down hollers. Don’t they smell me

sawing racks?
My meat becomes me.
Ripples revert to mouths in disarray,
lipping light and reeds.


ii.

Keep your jars in hearts.
I am more sacred with windows and blinds—
I am a lens that blackens in the sun.

It’s this urge to turn birds into furniture
that has me banned from billionths.
No one will let me near

a musk-ox much less
a microbe.


iii.

I rear God, bored by milk, under my back porch.
I shot the mother—spring shivers with temples.

I tenderize my altar, unzip mice, flagellate like Pisces.
Down marks a flameless space; a feather is dislocated light.

All I care about is the small and simple prayer—
the tooth sans gland,

the red bird occurring even in blasphemers,
the best abandoned nest.

It’s not me the foragers want. It’s not me
with my meathooks—