Bed of Ferns

Sonya Schneider

A bone left to decompose attracts
visitors: crows needling their beaks
into the sinewy center, lured
by the sweet stench of marrow,
a coyote wallows in the perfume
of its prey. After a big surf, the beach
is buried under blankets of bull kelp,
robust ropes rotting in the sun.
Flies hover like hungry clouds.
Once, hunting for mushrooms
on the mountain behind our house,
I came upon a doe, her golden body
lifeless across a bed of ferns.
Above, vultures circled, casting
dark shadows across the forest floor.
But I was not ready to let her go,
so I lay down beside her
and watched the sky.

Sonya Schneider is a Northwest poet and playwright with San Diego roots. She has been a finalist for Atlanta Review’s International Poetry Contest, New Letters’ Patricia Cleary Miller Award, Raleigh Review’s Laux & Millar Poetry Prize, and placed 7th in Writer’s Digest Annual Competition. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, B O D Y, Catamaran, Moon City Review, Naugatuck River Review, ONE ART, Potomac Review, Raleigh Review, Rust & Moth, Sheila-Na-Gig, Sky Island Journal, SWWIM, 3Elements Review, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. A graduate of Stanford University and Pacific University’s MFA in Poetry, she lives in Seattle with her family.