the exuberantly rotting nurse logs
all along the trail of the last hike
I took my antsy rescue dogs
on before the season closed.
I left my little girls with their fevers
at their father’s. I packed for what I knew.
I skirt a face-down river, flail as the marionettier
of my pack, dread that I wasn’t born
a hundred years ago, farther from
the end of the world. I listen for the names
of things. The cold sizzles. Branches, bowed
as if laden with snow, weaken with their own
growing weight. How do I teach my girls about snow,
which dark isn’t scary, what to do with wishes and love,
that the real fairy tale is when no one needs saving.
I excel at walks on the beach. We are in a woods.
We are in a woods because humans
aren’t working. Human relationships aren’t working.
I needed to be loved by someone who has failed;
that’s not (yet) birds, gales, soil.
I hit dirt with my knees; my dogs look
crazy at me. Cups of earth in my hands,
dirt on my dogs’ tongues. I hold their faces,
kiss them sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry.
Wonderfully moving and truthful to her hidden self. Megan, if you happen to stumble upon this comment I think you should become friends with this other poet that advocates for mental health. Her name is Katie Lin Merrill