Skull
Marybeth Holleman
Image by Annie Spratt
Killed across the calm
waters of the sound
on verdant spring flats
of the wide-mouthed delta,
its skinned body left
in a dumpster, he, part
scientist, part lover, dived
the dump to retrieve,
to sink it into saltwater
below his office on the docks.
Fishing boats swayed, left,
returned, filled with fish,
with snow, ice, meltwater,
swayed, left. He pulled up
from sea the young wolf’s
skeleton, and parceled
out sea-scoured bones
to friends and their children,
some who grew to be
trappers wanting more
than bone. Some carried
their bone like talisman. Some
trying to gain strength
in the wake of a cancer
ground theirs and drank.
One gripped the bone so tight
in death that fingers
had to be pried open. The skull
he kept, gave, when we joined,
to me, sits on my top shelf,
brought down while I wrote
of a man who gave his life
to studying wolves, wanting
us to see how they, too,
care for their young and each
other, wanting us
to see past tooth and claw
to tender underbelly.
This skull smooth
with time and the sea, I lift
it to the shelf, book done,
bottled message out,
and feel in my finger
a sharp pain. Quick bite.
A splinter, bone shard, under
my skin and I don’t pull it out.
Marybeth Holleman
Marybeth Holleman is author of The Heart of the Sound and Among Wolves, and co-editor of the poetry and essay anthology Crosscurrents North, among others. Her poetry collection, tender gravity, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. Pushcart-prize nominee and finalist for the Siskiyou Prize, she’s published in venues including Orion, Christian Science Monitor, Sierra, Literary Mama, ISLE/OUP, North American Review, AQR, zoomorphic, Minding Nature, The Guardian, The Future of Nature, and on NPR. Raised in North Carolina’s Smokies, Marybeth transplanted to Alaska's Chugach Mountains after falling head over heels for Prince William Sound two years before the Exxon Valdez oil spill. www.marybethholleman.com