There in the woods
We dreamed of forgiveness for our small sins,
Hair pulled and dolls thrown from moving cars
On the long joyless ride.
Ascending the mountain at the end
We began to breathe for the first time each summer,
Inhaling pheromones
Released by pines and weasels in heat.
At night the pond
Looked right through us, backlit by flashlight
As we ran to the outhouse,
Pocketing salamanders,
Orange and ghost, in a bucket on the walk back.
In the end, we saw the bullfrogs who sang
To us most nights squashed flat
On the curve of the road, leaving us contemplating
What kind of room the world had in mind
For those whose voices
Are held and hurled in a pocket of the throat,
Flung at the unsuspecting,
Turning a place at once boundless and small.
Berry Pond
Shannon Cuthbert is a writer and artist living in Brooklyn. Her poems have been nominated for three Pushcarts and have appeared or are forthcoming in Dodging the Rain, Hamilton Stone Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and elsewhere.