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.