The Day You Died

in the wetlands
the Oregon ash trees were bare like skinless thoughts--

bony candelabras for a gray sky

the pond was smoky green
with the occasional luminescent flash
of a hummingbird or dragonfly

but what drew me in was the movement
of rushes and willows

that is when I could finally hear the slow
branch of water as if it were your voice
slipping away from the fields

I watched a crow land in the heart
of a huckleberry tree --
light swam in its wings ­

a breeze browsed the mottled landscape
of brittle leaves and decaying apples

I closed my eyes -- intoxicated
in the smell of black honey

Rattlesnake Woman

she is walking barefoot again
over the rocky ground, past the sagging barn
where months earlier the rattlesnake
struck the top of her foot

the venom no longer drums with her blood
and her vision that surged and boiled
has sunk back into its malleable field

but the snake is still with her --
she can feel the writhing warmth
in her abdomen -- a form of music
unwinding

she follows a trail
Oregon's Takelma tribe once used --
past the Port-Orford-cedars and the Western Azalea
to the edge of the serpentine landscape

this is when the snake pours
upward -- undulating --

a ghost through her heart and lungs --
its head entering her head -- its eyes
languid behind her eyes

and this is why she simply stands
in the heat of the day -- her thoughts submerging

into the scaly slick flow of rock --
her body swaying
with the mellifluous waves of sunlight

Michael Spring is the author of two poetry books: blue crow and Mudsong. He was awarded the 2004 Robert Graves Award (Imago Poetry/UK), and has published poems in Ascent Aspirations Magazine, Atlanta Review, Dublin Quarterly, Midwest Quarterly, The Pedestal Magazine, Poems Niederngasse, Southern Ocean Review, Verse Libre Quarterly, and others.

Email: Michael Spring

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