by Sam Krebel
Praying children were shot today
And some 30 blocks away
Fred Seidel is masturbating in a Titane-like fantasy
To motorcycle photographs hidden in bibles
probably
The hiding is the fantasy
Hiding your gun before you shoot
With it—as if to say
You in your submissive way
Are a gift giver
Oxen multiply in small towers
Hidden in the hills of gun
Factories
Their clouds were purple once
And long ago I used to rest
______
Sam Kerbel was shortlisted for the 2024 Oxford Poetry Prize. His first chapbook, Can't Beat the Price (2025), is available from Bottlecap Press. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Apocalypse Confidential, Cleaver, Don't Submit, Lana Turner, and South Florida Poetry Journal, among other publications.
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