Wyvern by Jared Carter

                  WYVERN 

In European folklore, and also in British
heraldry, a winged, two-legged dragon.

You stood your ground and pawed the grass,
          and mewled, while I     
Aimed for your heart. My spear point passed
          on through. Your eyes

Lost all their sheen, your glossy wings
          fluttered and failed,
Till you became a tattered thing,
          still writhing, nailed.

And called unto your funeral dole
          in that dark fen,
The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole
          crept back again.

Jared Carter’s most recent collection, The Land Itself, is from Monongahela Books in West Virginia. His Darkened Rooms of Summer: New and Selected Poems, with an introduction by Ted Kooser, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2014. A recipient of several literary awards and fellowships, Carter is from the state of Indiana in the U.S.

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