The Atlantic | November 2002 | It Was Yoked to a Black Hunger

Contents | November 2002

More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.

The Atlantic Monthly | November 2002

It Was Yoked to a Black Hunger

by Dana Levin

.....

The raven lifted.
        Circled like a skate on a groove of air—

        the fur on the hare ruffled up.

Ruffling up,
        each follicle trying
to leave that meat
        as the raven swooped down, poked its beak
into that beating snuff,
        the rabbit not dead not yet—

        it pecked and pecked, until the one red spot welled up.

        A thin steam from the rabbit, like a wick blown out.

        The snow sparkling.

        And the raven cocked its black eye, dipped its beak
in the red pool it had made—

        for the ink of elegy.

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Dana Levin's book In the Surgical Theatre won the 1999 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book prize and numerous other awards. Levin directs the College of Santa Fe Creative Writing Program.