My Clan

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A spare, elemental poem about inheritance, survival, and belonging, My Clan evokes a world shaped by hardship, instinct, and fierce continuity. It was published in Crack the Spine Literary Magazine.

• Type – poem

• Publication / Venue – Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Issue 122

• Publisher – Crack the Spine Literary Magazine

• Publication date – August 6, 2014

• Format(s) – PDF, online

• Available at – Crack the Spine Literary Magazine issue; PDF

• About this work – A spare, elemental poem about inheritance, survival, and belonging. Through images of horses, wounds, wind, hawks, and silence, it evokes a clan shaped by hardship, instinct, and fierce continuity.

My Clan

Amanda Barusch

• My Clan

  In my clan the babies ride horses,
  snug between saddle and womb,
  manes flying loose in the coarse

  sea breeze. We fall. We lick our wounds.
  We tumble, again.
  Women shriek and beat the drums

  as echoes wash over. The men,
  starved and impatient, die young.
  But we know where to go when

  the wind shifts. We know which vein
  to tap. We know when the hawk descends
  on a twisted course, and the red pine

  bends to earth, that silence is at hand.
  Stars glare down on thin clouds and drifting sand.