The Llamacorn Herd

by Katherine Quevedo ​

like their unicorn brethren but wilder and woolier llamacorns will let you approach if you hold enough longing in your heart they’ll let your fingers disappear into their shaggy flanks each as impossible a pastel as taffy or the houses of Barrio las Peñas each horn like the lighthouse crowning Santa Ana Hill four hundred forty-four steps to seventy times seven they say llamacorns grant wishes but no, they are more like Guatemalan worry dolls you lay your troubles upon their backs these beasts of burden these pack animals you feed them your despairs for they have three stomachs and a strong constitution llamacorns lower their long lashes and purse their camelid lips then hum a lullaby as your load lightens mighty powerful herd

Katherine Quevedo was born and raised just outside of Portland, Oregon, where she works as an analyst and lives with her husband and two sons. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Rhysling Award and been longlisted for the Kingdoms in the Wild Annual Poetry Prize. Her debut mini-chapbook, The Inca Weaver’s Tales, is forthcoming from Sword & Kettle Press in their New Cosmologies series. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Asimov’s, Apparition Literary Magazine, Anterior Skies, TOWER, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Coffin Bell, Eye to the Telescope, and elsewhere. Find her at www.katherinequevedo.com.