COLIN DEKEERSGIETER

La Tarantella


Remember the broad rattle of grief 
is a walking stick or a rain stick

and now you are a witch doctor. 
Shake the rain onto the blinds

and over the abdomens of others. 
Make the dance specially haunted.

My father’s a zumbi. He dances
in a little shop he’s bought

in Montpelier with single-origin light 
where he lives by the grace

of fixing things. Through the white-wash 
on the windows I hear steel grind

and strings twang. He dances
La Tarantella like a maiden

courting the poltergeist of Sunday morning 
itching his bites and sweating out poison.



182  The Paris-American

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Colin Dekeersgieter holds degrees from The University of Vermont and The City University of New York, Graduate Center. He is a Pushcart nominee with work featured in The Worcester Review, Out of Our, The Poetry Quarterly and elsewhere. He lives and writes in New York City.
  Next week's poet:

 Andrew GraceJJCCCACc