Carrion In the wet murk of the forest I saw her About the Author Lauren Punales writes from St. Petersburg. Her poetry appears in the Live Poets Society’s My World Anthology, Cypress Dome, and elsewhere.
balled in the crook of a switchback
at the top of Mount Mitchell, to bloody its peak
like an Abrahamic sacrifice.
The wavering beam of my flashlight caught
the curve of her neck, her face pressed to the ground
almost tenderly.
My hand went to her sides, where she was
still and cold as a frozen lake.
Clearing the trail, I dragged her
by her hind legs, stiff and
swollen with bloat, catching on
the underbrush. We ended
at the riverbank coughing up its mist
as it threw itself at its rocks.
I crouched over her body until the moon
slung low behind the mountain
and could no longer find her face.
In that dark
she could’ve been human.
I rolled her into the water.
