Julebukking

It must terrify you, that words said in a certain way
Can tear you from your house.

Come and wear goatskin with me.

Step with me on the scattered snowflakes;
Pentagram shapes weigh down the white world tonight.

Hooves leave a hard imprint, a dark wet mark.

Hoof-clop like the noise your tongue makes
When it leaves the roof of your mouth.

I leave a goat’s head on your porch
Next to the old broom and car windshield scraper.

This poem was first published in October 2020 in The London Magazine (October/November 2020).

Daniel Hinds won the Poetry Society’s Timothy Corsellis Young Critics Prize. His poetry was commended in the National Centre for Writing’s UEA New Forms Award and has been published, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The New European, Wild Court, Stand, Southword, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Iamb, Blackbox Manifold, The Honest Ulsterman, New Contrast, Prairie Fire, Perverse, Poetry Bus Magazine, Finished Creatures, Abridged, Orbis, York Literary Review, The Storms, and elsewhere. His poetry has been broadcast on BBC platforms, including BBC Sounds and BBC Introducing Arts with Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 6 Music. Twitter: @DanielGHinds