Poem

My Body for the Birds

/ /

After the scent from my corpse has dissipated,
and remains of violet skin have flaked and flown
to distant parts of the earth, I search for limbs
naturally scattered from the open-air burial.
The arms, one torn away at the elbow
with puncture wounds from canine teeth,
lie in a stolen burrow. The broken legs
rest under willow trees. Knees are bare,
blood and white bone blend with firn
and cardinal feathers. Owls have claimed the head,
hair ripped from the scalp and woven
with blackberry burr. The heart nowhere,
consumed by the coyote mothers.
In the state of contentment:
I long for nothing present before the pines
whole with the eluviated horizon. Here,
decay becomes an arresting abstraction, a graphic
painting of softening muscle and twenty-four ribs.

*

Stratus cloud pine sway
sap smell rides the new updraft
I am the updraft