Poems by W.E. Pasquini

Harvesting Sheds in Jackson Hole

by W.E. Pasquini

From Canary Winter 2019-20

W.E. Pasquini lives inland near the Hillsborough River that feeds down into the great bay where the Calusa, along with other ancient tribes, established the ancient town they called Tanpa. She lives just close enough to a wilderness area to see an occasional coyote, fox, or deer.

The Chevy shifts beneath our weight
as we stack elk racks in the rust brown bed.

The air hints of fresh frost and sudden snow,
and our breath freezes around our words—

as delicate as membrane on antlers
in late spring when those veluntinous webs

wrap bone until scraped away against hard bark.
Even in this cold, I sweat. I lift my hand to wipe

my brow and think of how white underbellies melt
snow with their heat and how the trees save the song

of stomping hooves deep inside their sheltered roots.
My own silence swells like ice inside mountain stone.