The Poetry of Derek Berry

“i wear a wedding dress/woven of queen anne’s lace/& wisteria. i slip a garter/of lichen off my thigh./i do not recognize, at first,/the effigy of desire:/burnt moss for hair,/putrid/bog breath./not every incandescence is beacon,/some only a house burning/or body/lit from within.”—By Derek Berry

Speculative Friction

By Claire Bateman

GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—November 1, 2021—Aiken, South Carolina poet Derek Berry is the author of the novel Heathens & Liars of Lickskillet County (PRA, 2016), as well as the poetry chapbooks Glitter Husk and Buggery. Their work has recently appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, ANMLY, beestung, Raleigh Review, Pidgeonholes, and elsewhere. Berry currently work/s at a Cold War museum as an education specialist.

martyrdom of saint sebastian
           after Guido Reni

look closer. don’t mistake
tree trunk for Wyoming fencepost,
saint for boy, though in the end,
they died the same—beaten, blued,
bloated & abandoned.
but in this moment, hands bound
over his head, eyes toward heaven,
he’s still alive. shot through
with light. throat exposed
like a shepherd giving
his life over to wolves.

i invite the swamp creature into bed, then set him on fire

kiss me
mouthful of muck,
lung-emptied
like a dead cypress.
can you taste the brine of my want?

can two crickets
rubbing thighs
against one another
create music
sharp as night’s end?

i dream the concert
our bodies make.

i wear a wedding dress
woven of queen anne’s lace
& wisteria. i slip a garter
of lichen off my thigh.

i do not recognize, at first,
the effigy of desire:
burnt moss for hair,
putrid
bog breath.

not every incandescence is beacon,
some only a house burning
or body
lit from within.

queer the smear

behind the school,
we scrum. we bum rush.
we hum the slur, sing
for brief carnage.
We drum skin red,
become bruisenumb.
we limpwrist
launch the football
above us, spread
arms to catch its descent, then
thrum with violence.
we come
undone.
no rules except
blood glitzing
grass, curbside,
parking lot
gravel sparkling
in sunlight like glitter.
there is no other way
boys may touch,
may hold each other
against the dirt.

a boy without a name dances grease high

sweat-hijacked. holyspirit-hamstrung
between what his tongue
knows of skin’s salt
& his hands
know of my throat’s
yes.
find me feast of forgotten pork rinds
spilled on the floorboard of his daddy’s truck.
but i am not here,
only in some other body unfamiliar
with however his breath smells.
instead, curled around
the question mark of what might have been,
sugar hungry & carnival starved,
i sink into the river, stone weighted,
bob for adam apples, bite whatever
soft flesh lives below the water’s surface.

Note: These poems were originally published in Buggery, winner of the BOOM Chapbook Prize from Bateau Press.

To order copies of Claire Bateman’s books Scape or Coronology from Amazon, click on the book covers below.