Deer skeleton, blanched bones, ribs like broken
bed slats, one pointing leg still furred as a
woman’s arm in winter. Wildflowers
wind into a shopping cart’s plastic weave—
at the remaining wheels, orange paintbrush lurks
among red milkweed. Ballet flats without
ribbons wait. Guard rail twisted like cursive.
Up ahead, the granite mouth of the cliffs
slowly swallows the road’s tongue, and with it,
the line of vehicles waiting, ready
to disappear deep in the cliff’s belly,
to corrode, become the fossils of cars.
©
is an MFA candidate at Bennington College. She has had poems previously appear in Rattle, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Calyx, among other journals, and has poems forthcoming in Lumina, So to Speak, and Avatar Review.
Brannigan’s poem “Pennies a Day” also appears in this issue.
