Illumination
Tim Bascom
Three hundred calves skinned whole,
their hides rubbed smooth
under a bone blade, stitched and trimmed
and tattooed to keep the myth
blossoming in egg yolk
vermillion and lapis
lazuli. And the sacred script
scritch-scratched with turkey quill
and knife, in letters that lift
light as eyelash then
flare back so wide that
after the page is turned
they shadow through—these holy scars
these dark and holy scars
which bleed into the belly
of a beast no longer there.
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Tim Bascom has published poetry in Spoon River Poetry Review, Slant, Spillway, North American Review, and other journals. His essays have appeared in The Missouri Review, Creative Nonfiction, and others. His memoir Chameleon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia won the Bakeless Literary Prize in Nonfiction. Bascom received his MFA degree from the University of Iowa, and he returns there annually to teach at their Summer Writing Festival. He is currently the Director of Creative Writing at Waldorf College.