An Eagle’s Wing, the Leg of a Deer

By

What my daughter found
on a bloodied trail in the Tetons,
cutting short her early morning hike.

Nature unencumbered. Naked. Raw.
Without resolve. Bear or mountain lion,

maybe a moose, she says.
She lives to tell about it.
Though it could have been otherwise.

Aren’t we always a half-breath between
forever and nevermore? Tight-rope
of serendipity?

Cat lost in a crawlspace for eight days.
You either find him or not.

Distraction at an intersection,
car careens through a red light,
Mercedes or jalopy, it doesn’t matter.

A young woman’s mania comes back. One spark
and the whole planet is burning.

The pizza burns. Your poem gets published
in the New Yorker. No one reads it.
Everyone reads it. You eat the pizza.

At night you hear a scratch on a screen
outside your window. Cicada or

perpetrator. You cut off the light,
pull the covers over your head.

Tomorrow morning
you either wake up or you don’t.

Barbara Conrad

Barbara Conrad is author of three poetry collections: The Gravity of Color, Wild Plums and her most recent, There Is a Field (2018). Also she is editor of Waiting for Soup. an anthology from her writing group with homeless folks. Her poems have appeared in Tar River Poetry, Atlanta Review, Nine Mile, NC Literary Review, Broad River and numerous anthologies, such as Kakalak and Southern Poetry Anthology. Her latest book reflects the interconnectedness of many lives, especially those that haunt from a perspective of social justice.

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