my mother warned me
never invoke a demon
by name see above
for my perilous blunder
or the angel who whispered
one syllable too many & woke
to find her flesh turned
to stone marble organs
cold & ordinary at her feet
the beast dressed in kelp
& dead carp grinned
rubbing its belly its eyes drifting
across the surf like whole notes
now the grass grows high & wild
a pack of cub scouts walk in
& never walk out
birdsongs gurgle
drowning out grunts
& howls like sirens in a riptide
do you know what happens
in the soft cage of a demon’s gut
a single bending light
then atonement
no worse than that
on the coast you’ll find a fig tree
so lonely & lush only gravity
can pick its fruit
Anthony Thomas Lombardi is the author of Murmurations (YesYes Books, 2025), a Poetry Project 2021-2022 Emerge-Surface-Be-Fellow, and a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, among other accolades. He has taught or continues to teach with Burough of Manhattan community College, Paris College of Art, Brooklyn Poets, Polyphony Lit’s apprenticeship programming, community programming throughout New York City, and currently serves as poetry editor for Sundog Lit. His work has appeared or will soon appear in the Poetry Foundation, Best Poets, Guernica, Black Warrior Review, Nashville Review, Narrative Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with his cat, Dilla.