Emily Skillings Emily Skillings is the author of the poetry collection Fort Not (The Song Cave, 2017) and the editor of Parallel Movement of the Hands: Five Unfinished Longer Works by John Ashbery (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2021). She currently teaches creative writing at Yale, NYU, and Columbia and lives in Brooklyn.

The Fool | Poetry

Emily Skillings

I, too, long for a cradle Of brilliant grasses Braided through with wildflowers Rocking on a historic mound That drinks the blood of men Clots of irreverent sight— A shadow spills out Of a pinprick In the form Down below on the hill The men gasp and gurgle Until they go out Their weapons flirting in the sunshine Slick with insides The grasses grow strong and toxic So goes my...