Jeffrey Renard Allen

Broke into Motion

– for Terrence Malick

                   i
Mouth twitching with age
he dropped spittle onto the ground
which she kneaded with 
earth that was there
fashioned a worm shaped like a spear

                   ii
A sigh across the earth
four eyes, six feet, one tail
Thus they travel up from the 
south
plying on waves
a sigh over the deep
The Indian dressed in buckskin,
beaded and ornamented with feathers
river map on his chest
his path-finding horse wrapped in a blanket of
bright colors
He sits high in the saddle and
with his arrow takes aim, standing to arms
The wounds shine more brightly than the body
Dawn his head, sun his eye, air his belly 
sky his forepart, earth his hind-part
the clouds his lungs, the stars his bones
ether his blood
His urine purifies the waters, waves
Now he stands rigid 
coiled inside a 
serpent

A Chicago Native, Jeffery Renard Allen is the author of five books, most recently the novel Song of the Shank. Allen has received numerous accolades for his work, including a Whiting Writers' Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, a residency at the Bellagio Center, and fellowships at The Center for Scholars and Writers, the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Schomburg Center for Black Research and Culture. His collection of stories Fat Time will be published in 2022. Founder and editor of the online magazine Taint Taint Taint, he is at work on several projects, including the critical study The Rhythm of the Hot Dog: Music as Narrative, the memoir Mother Wit, and the novel Hour of the Seeds. He makes his home in Johannesburg. Find out more about him at www.authorjefferyrenardallen.com