The Burrowers Recall Life A.G.*
Windows instead of hatchways—before the sun up and melted our glass.
We ate crunch and color, and if you didn’t want a ceiling, you didn’t have to have one.
Sometimes I caress the carpet and pretend it’s growing. Like moss. Or bark. Or those stems
crowned with lace, roadside. Named for a monarch who united two countries. I forget who and which.
When there were monarchs—queens and butterflies—and countries. And weathered red barns.
When weather was—not benign, exactly, but gradual. Like shorelines. Marsh or dunes. Remember?
Before the reefless sea encroached. And so much fresh water we could waste it on our skins.
Frolic, wetly! Now we wander our dim warren, guide-ropes at hand, wending from
and to our hollowed-out homes. Oh, and remember No justice, No peace?—that jingle we’d chant
before former higher-ups made their deals with the devil? His hell ascended. We dug down.
*Above Ground
Of Bone and Brain
1.
That weird scream, mine. Still hanging
there, in my reruns of the rain fall.
Like a hat I didn’t recognize,
left for someone else to claim.
Over seven prior decades, no bone
ever dared betray me. In no tumbles
from bikes, no skating mishaps,
no car crashes. Not one broke
its promise to uphold my tender
innards and fragile wrapper.
Then: what a bumbling bone-
head move, a slip, a slide
on slick wet grass and in a snap
the left strut angles, fissures, cracks
like a hidden wishbone. Lower leg
useless, loose as if dangling from a nail.
2.
Now knee flesh is stitched,
a metal plate holds fracture
like Thanksgiving leftovers,
and the mind, over the matter
of such wrack and gimp,
lacks its get-up-and-go too.
It limps along blind alleys, shuffles
its fun house of cards, not yet playing
with a full deck of neural tarot to signify,
weigh, meanings, past and future.
The Tower. The Hermit. The Chariot?
No Weight Bearing—that, at least, is clear.
3.
Weeks of weakness my burden,
splintered, stabbed, stitched, stiff,
lurching, I bear waiting but find
I can’t Atlas words or the world.
Idling by the bed, the wheelchair.
I’ve learned to propel, steer it,
gripping the edge of countertops
the way I clung to the edge
of the pool when learning to swim.
Choking on swallowed mistakes
until I surfaced to gulp air anew
and arms churned and finally kicks
kicked in, and flailing became strokes
necessary to stay afloat enough to think,
to think if I just keep going I might,
thankfully, not forever flounder, sink.
Backyard Fox
These days when dead birds,
strange storms, glacier melt
work to leave her blind
to all that’s bright, watching
the fox den from her window
offers a glimpse of hope.
Where once slopes held
old growth—birch, oak,
red spruce, white pine—
now stand fine homes
like hers, where she
raised her kids, tried
to teach them to be kind.
The fox kits pounce, roll,
and flit through one last
plot of trees.
They don’t care
when she stands near
to watch them romp
or learn to tear at meat.
At times, she thinks
she should stomp
or clap or scream
to help them share
the fear she knows
could save them,
save this world.
Jeanne Julian is author of Like the O in Hope and two chapbooks. Her poems are in Kakalak, Panoply, RavensPerch, Ocotillo Review and elsewhere, and have won awards from Reed Magazine, Comstock Review, Naugatuck River Review, and Maine Poets’ Society. She reviews books for The Main Street Rag. www.jeannejulian.com
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