A review by boldeststroke
Brute: Poems by Emily Skaja

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

4.0

I can’t stop dreaming I’m hiding

my own prints in the snow, convinced
my mouth is a metal trap, a part of it, apart

from you, & when you pull me awake
it’s because I’m lining my body with burrs,

because I’m antlers & talons & I know

the smell of cedar is home, is a ring of sky
I love, but I can’t take it when

you say Only deer, only hawks.

i always love to read work that's written by someone i've learned from. so many of these pieces circle around pain that lingers, like the cracked bones of a corpse rotten away skin-first, and they paint such visceral images that you can't help but swoop toward in the hopes of tearing some final flesh. i think that's why my favorite poem is "four hawks" because i can't imagine the gravity of the situation in the relationship being described without that central feeling.