Bone Collector, Mad Woman, Boy Mom

My youngest son,
who could always fit through
when and where
you were not supposed to,
found a squirrel, sleeping, he said.
Knowing better
I had to kneel
to see and wanted to say
yes, yes just sleeping.
A side sleeper, even—look
at the haunch of his shoulder
and hip, the way his tail
stretches peaceful—
Let him be, we said.
And then winter long enough
to rearrange more than a few things.
But the squirrel remained,
wouldn’t have, probably,
if the bigger kids knew about it
but he got home midday
back then and something
reminded him to check
or maybe just the scent of earth
led him to the bones:
the tiny knee cap, the shoulder—
he stayed with the body
and I walked back home
to get a container—saying to myself: bone collector,
mad woman, boy mom.
The skull with its emptiness
the tally of ribs and teeth—
part of why I grabbed a container,
agreed to it, was that we had to leave—
take the dog to see the vet
where my son told her
about his squirrel
and she asked to see—
put on gloves,
spread out cloth,
laid each small relic—
we were only missing
a few toes, phalanges—
she corrected, a child again
but with the names for things—
clavicle, scapula, patella—and oh—
that intact tail. My son
leaned toward her litany,
repeating, almost a gathering
of two souls, three—
I know I’m a little too quick to hunger
for beauty
but it felt like holy prayer, it did,
all that wonder
between them.

Sunlight in Fog

The goose, swooping low and sudden
over my roof, expected to land on water,
but belly-skidded across asphalt
before righting himself
and gazing down his bill
for a measured moment.

I could almost hear him clear his throat
and mutter nothing to see here
but I followed, at a distance,
to watch his tender wide waddle
cross the road to the pond
where his goose brethren gathered.

Fog is tricky, hiding mountains,
changing shape—each tiny droplet
has reflection, has shadow,
has a way of turning
everything gray.

You need to stand with the sun at your back
to see anything clearly
but even then, sometimes,
the distance blurs. I know
how often I’ve seen
what I’ve wanted too.

Rebecca Brock’s first book, The Way Land Breaks, is forthcoming from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. Her work appears in The Threepenny Review, Literary Mama, River Heron Review, Rust + Moth, Whale Road Review and elsewhere. She won The Comstock Review’s 2022 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Poetry Contest, judged by Ellen Bass, and the 2022 Kelsay Women’s Poetry Contest. Her chapbook, Each Bearing Out (Kelsay Books 2022), was a semi-finalist in the 2021 New Women’s Voices Contest at Finishing Line Press. She has been a flight attendant for most of her adult life and is still surprised by this fact. Idaho born, she lives in Virginia, with her family. You can find more of her work at www.rebeccabrock.org

Published April 15 2023