The Lovely Rapture [Kin Kelli 3] – A Poem by Katy Santiff

Poetry by Katy Santiff

Cousin, there are evenings when your dreaming
breaks the night. The pleasant state of morning
makes a callous caw. The rooster’s jarring
anthem’s shredding the star-line like a grate,
marring my sleeping slate. That’s when I want
to palm God’s jaw and give it a good, hard shake.

Clerics, pastors, clergymen will collect
and rub our relics—hair, teeth, and saintly
bones—icons of an apostolic faith.
But wait until the cows come home to roost,
when the horsemen run and ride their final
flight—harvesting all of these beautiful,
guttural, terrible, wonderful lives—
wait for this lovely rapture. They’ll call the dead
to rise again, and we’ll all rot instead.

About the Poet

Katy Santiff has written poetry in various forms all her life. A fan of meter and rhyme, she loves lines that hypnotize the reader with their sound. She believes in densely-packed poems, preferring them to be mouthfuls when read aloud. A lifelong Marylander, she loves water-side living.  She currently lives in Edgewater, Maryland with her wife. Her Works have been published by Vita Brevis and Spillwords Press.

For the first time in nearly five years, Vita Brevis is closed for submission. Read the full story here.