He drew me to him gingerly
telling me to walk as if I were a doe
leaving only ink drops of hoof marks;
the air in late November crisp, smooth,
a tea-coloured loveliness, and he was kneeling
as if in blessing to the small mound
of duff and matter, the leaves of madrone
and oak filtering the dawn shingles of mist;
there he brushed the deep sea
of dirt away like the oldest mystery,
as if not to awake pain, as if apologetic
or assuaging guilt; and since I knew
that he was out looking for wild mushrooms
I had anticipated a palpable find,
but there was a calm befitting
the most sublimated spirit—an ancient
dome prophetic as those of Eastern cathedrals—
and the creature was resting, its eyes
somewhere lost in its girdled skin,
its shell carved amazingly by wind and age,
as the hawk cry was heard
near the grove’s threshold, so then he immediately
covered up the beast who had forged
its own grave, temporary tomb,
as he had done for me
so often in those early hours
before leaving for work—
scooting the blankets back
over my head, his wife assailed by
her familiar depression, hibernating
each morning from the effulgence of light.
Leonore Wilson is a college English and creative writing instructor from Northern California. She is on the MFA Board at St Mary's College of California. Her work has been featured in such places as Quarterly West, Third Coast, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Taos Poetry Review, and Poets Against the War.