The Dark Sire Issue 1 (Fall 2019) | Page 68

back to the cage and laid me inside, on the fleece blanket. I received no food, only a flavorless liquid that numbed my tongue. And when I was finished, what filled me was some sense of accomplishment. Time had passed; I was alive. Somebody must have thought that was worthwhile. Gregory Kimbrell is the author of The Primitive Observatory (Southern Illinois University Press, 2016), winner of the 2014 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in IDK Magazine, Impossible Archetype, The Operating System, Otoliths, Phantom Drift, Quail Bell Magazine, and elsewhere. Kimbrell describes himself as a “queer, furry writer” who uses poetry to explore, and locate his own, sexual and social identity. He sees his writing as a subversive act of myth making, of smashing old worlds and building ne w ones. His current guiding lights are Aase Berg, Anne Carson, Haruki Murakami, and Armand Schwerner. 66