Please see our important Publisher’s Note following this month’s Editorial that has important information about a new threat to the survival of all SF/F/H magazines.
Content warnings:
Death.
I was inspired to write this poem after a day of birdwatching at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge with my husband and oldest daughter. As a fan of Karen Russell’s short fiction, I love her story “The Bog Girl.” Though this poem is not about that story, I am intrigued by the idea of being preserved by the natural world to be observed and wondered about after death.
Who knows when we will sink into tar pits again
Or lie dormant in a peat bog
Our hair turning red over the decades
Dyed by the acids in the mix
Our ankles will be crossed and our hands pressed together in prayer
Our hearts will harden and ossify
Even further in the wombs of our rib cages
While snow geese cyclone onto the marsh
Above our heads and juvenile bald eagles
Tear apart the flesh of rabbits with their terrible beaks
And they will know us by
The rings on our fingers
They will wonder who loved us they will
Know that we were loved
