Morbid Curiosity
People keep showing up dead
in lakes. The paper asks how
to address The Surge in Murders.
In myth, death comes by boat.
Or midway upon the journey of our life.
I think about it, the closest I’ve come to death
that I’m aware of: 13 and green
in Shenandoah, where treetops picked
at the scab of sun, just done rising,
my friends still asleep in their neatly zipped tents.
Awake and alone, I took myself on a walk
down the sloping mountain road.
I heard it before I saw it: a bear cub
shimmying up a tree. The sight
like a seal between the waves — cute, at first,
but a sign of something sinister, a shark
or mama bear nearby. The greatest threat
is what you can’t see. I know this, now,
but that morning I approached, reached out
to touch the cub’s blue-black fur. I’ve tried
to write this moment so many times. How it felt
to wake in the woods and walk out.
To see the baby bear and feel nothing
but wonder. There was a time
when I trusted the world, felt safe
among the trees. I stood right in its path,
no mother in sight — silly me.