One Poem
by Bryce Emley

In the Woods, a Possum Carcass Growing Wildflowers

 
Were the ants touring the stadium
of bones, or were they waging
another kind of service?
Claiming a new space
for shadows in the territory
of daylight, the ribs’ coliseum
must have looked like proof
of someone else’s country.
We’re hungry tourists
who love a ruined structure,
count the ways time pummels
sturdy columns. Who hasn’t
trespassed on the dead
and felt we are home
wherever new color fought
to bloom?

Bryce Emley’s poetry and nonfiction can be found in Narrative, Boston Review, Best American Experimental Writing 2015, december, Prairie Schooner, and others. He is a 2016 Edward F. Albee Foundation fellow, a 2016 Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize runner-up, and poetry editor of Raleigh Review.
 

Header photo of wildlflowers by Joniitti, courtesy Pixabay.