Off the Coast

To The Brothers

As you kill 

a young sheep rests 

in a wetland of mother sheep 

And as you kill 

your brother’s eyes sing to you 

eyes of candles glinting 

in a church’s stained glass window 

And as you kill him 

his eyes watch you 

strangle the softness from him 

And you both lie there 

in ancestors of reeds 

the cattails of Cain slither 

against your white wet calves 

And as you kill, your brother 

swallows the last syllable of the trees 

he is swallowing the last syllable of the trees 

Meaghan Quinn is an Assistant Poetry Editor for The Tishman Review. She holds an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Bennington College and has studied at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. She was nominated for Best New Poets 2015 and a 2015 Pushcart Prize and was a recipient of the Nancy Penn Holsenbeck Prize. Her poems are forthcoming or have been published in Heartwood, r.kv.r.y., 2River, Adrienne, Triggerfish, Free State Review, and others.