Content warnings:
Death, animal death.
There is so much we don’t know. I’ve often stood in ankle-high grass wondering what lay deep beneath my feet . . . and what lay beneath that . . . and beneath that. This poem is my way of exploring history, legacy, and inevitability.
You awake every morning in a bed
which resides above the bones of a doe.
The creature died long ago, swallowed
by the earth before men came to build the house—
this house, where you make your coffee,
sleepily shuffling from counter to counter.
A mouse, having eaten poison behind the fridge,
died beneath these patterned kitchen tiles—
did you know? And in the front hall,
beyond that mahogany picture window
overlooking the rose bush, a dead bird—
so fresh it doesn’t look dead at all—lies
nestled in mulch between roots, roses,
thorns. What a beautiful place to lay
down and rest. So peaceful. Pleasant.
But the cardinal isn’t the only one
this yard has claimed. There have been rabbits,
foxes, insects, snakes, rodents of all sizes.
There has been me. Secreted beneath the asphalt
upon which your beige little sedan now idles,
having been stored in the ground after the doe,
but before the house came to stand on this spot.
A secret between me and the earth,
sealed forever by time and circumstance.
Never forget that this world is a tomb.
One day, it will open wide for you.
