Still Life in Pine Woods

I guess the coyotes are waiting
for a thaw.  The skin of the forest cracked
under my boots as I crept into the lung
of woods to see if she was still
dead.  Near her throat, a single leaf
clung to stem, as if expecting breath.
Hair frayed the hole in her chest, a tunnel
into the deepest part of her.  She must have
struggled for air as she wove a blood trail
through brush, running until she came to the center
of the woods.  The center for me, I mean, near
my favorite fallen tree.  How many times
I’ve climbed this log, trying to balance, pretending
that I am no longer afraid of heights.  Snow filled
her outline, white belly protruding beneath crust,
brownish legs stretched against shaken
powder. I am not afraid, here, in the cervix
of the woods.  She ran to this thicket, lay her body
near my tree, breathed her last warmth beneath
pines that creak and chime under wind.  The coyotes
will come, in the spring, when their hunger
is fierce.

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Published in River Oak Review