Chris Crittenden is a hermit living in a remote area of Maine without streetlights or fast food restaurants. There are some moose, though! His work has recently appeared in Poems Niederngasse, DMQ Review, Bolts of Silk, and Poetic Diversity.

Joan of Arc

     by Chris Crittenden

like a stung monk,

nurtured by solitude not ears,

she rose up among wattle,

not daring to respect

the eyes foaming around her,

white as death cups.

“a prophet! a prophet!” they cried,

lips like shiny scales

on a hamlet-wide snake

that squeezed her in its midst—

pressured her to sing

like a doomed thrush,

until the beast writhed with divinity,

crushing Saxons, salting fields—

and she,

discarded in the spattered coils,

spread her half-real wings,

escaped.

© 2008 Chris Crittenden