Zero at the Bone by Stacie Cassarino
First the snow for days. Blankout. Frost heaves. I shovel away your
tracks. I expect you. I think one night you're holding my feet at the
edge of the bed, you're downstairs reading The Hour We Knew
Nothing of Each Other. I smell you in the sheets. Wind blows the
door open. Even the single bluebird is looking for you. For 40
nights I dream you leave again with no warning. I memorize it. I
want to be a better person. March leaves us cold & clung with our
heads off, each false memory of touch, the sky's spindrift, loss
taking residence in my throat. I touch myself in a parked car. I
understand what a bridge is for. I remember the taste of your
mouth. I come home to nothing. Once, I said: you've got to live
like everything will hurt you. Now I believe it. There was a woman
on her knees stealing the silver from a fish. April and ladybugs fill
the house. I imagine their omen. Athena's owl in the old barn. A
dear man calling the turkeys in the field. Then the first green, the
geese returning to Dead Creek, the unrecoverable code of
treefrogs in the pond we circled in the old year. The well still
frozen. I break all my rules. I eat buffalo and lamb, then pray. I tell
my father you're the one I love. Then I count up the Junes. Do you
think animals know they're going to die? This heart's a decoy. This
heart unwinters against your will. No one can know what goes on
there, though we try. We improvise. We go to the taxidermist for
a javelina. Grandma sings me a song on the phone. If this is all
there is, I am without a body desperate for the sorcery of
summer. Sometimes the little things: trillium in the woods, the
red wing of the blackbird, rhubarb and fiddleheads, wild berries,
a marsh hawk hunting. Thunder comes late each day. I walk knee-
deep in the meadow: pink poppies, mint. These are fieldnotes for
healing. When will I stop asking after you? I watch a dog die on
Highway 684. The part about desire is that it runs you over. By the
time I'm someone else, you're gone. Wicked promise against
what lasts. Bees knock on these windows. What my body wants
to say to your body, it cannot.
tracks. I expect you. I think one night you're holding my feet at the
edge of the bed, you're downstairs reading The Hour We Knew
Nothing of Each Other. I smell you in the sheets. Wind blows the
door open. Even the single bluebird is looking for you. For 40
nights I dream you leave again with no warning. I memorize it. I
want to be a better person. March leaves us cold & clung with our
heads off, each false memory of touch, the sky's spindrift, loss
taking residence in my throat. I touch myself in a parked car. I
understand what a bridge is for. I remember the taste of your
mouth. I come home to nothing. Once, I said: you've got to live
like everything will hurt you. Now I believe it. There was a woman
on her knees stealing the silver from a fish. April and ladybugs fill
the house. I imagine their omen. Athena's owl in the old barn. A
dear man calling the turkeys in the field. Then the first green, the
geese returning to Dead Creek, the unrecoverable code of
treefrogs in the pond we circled in the old year. The well still
frozen. I break all my rules. I eat buffalo and lamb, then pray. I tell
my father you're the one I love. Then I count up the Junes. Do you
think animals know they're going to die? This heart's a decoy. This
heart unwinters against your will. No one can know what goes on
there, though we try. We improvise. We go to the taxidermist for
a javelina. Grandma sings me a song on the phone. If this is all
there is, I am without a body desperate for the sorcery of
summer. Sometimes the little things: trillium in the woods, the
red wing of the blackbird, rhubarb and fiddleheads, wild berries,
a marsh hawk hunting. Thunder comes late each day. I walk knee-
deep in the meadow: pink poppies, mint. These are fieldnotes for
healing. When will I stop asking after you? I watch a dog die on
Highway 684. The part about desire is that it runs you over. By the
time I'm someone else, you're gone. Wicked promise against
what lasts. Bees knock on these windows. What my body wants
to say to your body, it cannot.