Kayleb Rae Candrilli. Photo: Jack Papanier.

Kayleb Rae Candrilli is the author of What Runs Over, winner of the 2016 Pamet River Prize, published by YesYes Books. They are also author of All the Gay Saints, winner of the 2018 Saturnalia Book Prize and forthcoming in 2020. Candrilli’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, Booth, and RHINO, among others. Candrilli was a 2015 Lambda Literary Emerging Fellow in Nonfiction and a 2017 fellow in poetry. They live in Philadelphia.

Two excerpts from What Runs Over:

On the mountain
………….we used to feed each other
……………………..bullets to say I love you.

We used to walk around with
…………….mouthfuls of slugs and feel weighed
……………………….deep down into the dirt.

My family is so far
……………apart now I can only
……………………..reach them by bullet.

I check my wristwatch and take
…………..the curvature of the earth
…………………….into consideration.

I feed lead into my rifle’s
…………….chamber and each round
…………………………has a name I chant.

……………………………………………………:: Victoria :: Tori ::
……………………………………………………:: Peter :: Jerome ::
……………………………………………………:: Neives :: Your Lady of the Snows ::
……………………………………………………:: Our Lady of Sorrows ::

in the house on the hill
we hung coyotes on the wall
and our lab bark-whimpered,
confusing them for mirrors,
or oracles, maybe even, a premonition
of a strung up future.

they hung there and i pet them, combed
them for summer shed that wouldn’t come.

i’ve never seen a wolf
in the wild. elusive dog.
but i’ve seen bears, bobcats, & lions
built exclusively for the mountain,
appalachian cats—
sphinxes riddling away at me,
boring holes.
& daddy was always taking shots
out the window
exploding them
to rorschach.