What to Make of This
Up the morning trail
to the pinyon on the rim rock
someone, or something,
placed a cow skull.
The skull just lies there,
teeth resting on bare dirt,
three-quarters turned
to the forward momentum of the trail;
lies there like a placed rock, motionless,
lifeless, propped on its teeth,
on the ground.
The empty sockets
stare blankly into space,
forever;
in the old, oblong, eroded, lonely shape
the eye sockets form an O,
a new moon, a silent and empty hole,
vacated space in ochre bone.
It was not there yesterday,
the old man says to himself,
but, already, cracks in the bone scatter pieces,
heat shatters the teeth, splinters
litter the trail.
Yet, he thinks, with strength,
even in death,
the skull persists
in juniper shade.
Postscript: two days later,
the skull was gone.
The old man searched for it,
devoted a week to looking,
but never found it.
Benjamin Green is the author of twelve books including His Only Merit (Finishing Line Press) and the upcoming Old Man Looking through a Window at Night (Main Street Rag). He resides in Jemez Springs, New Mexico.