un charogne
adapted from Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire
you came in from a sunrise ramble
drops of dew still stowing away in your curls
“you must come see” and took my hand
to show me something you’d found in the woods
a doe splayed out on the leaves,
the smell of spilled blood over damp earth
her eyes glazed and nonchalant,
her neck unaware of its ripped raw seam
the sky was red flame,
the sailor’s legend painted to perfection
ceremonial prepared to welcome home
this creature-spirit of the forest womb
the scene opened to the dawn
like an altar to a rose window;
small mammals and insects, birds
following the scent like incense down the aisle
the flies landed and the flesh expanded
while larvae shrank back into eggs
faster than the speed of thought
and the doe looked like she was hyperventilating
the space between my ears couldn’t hold
these rotted blooms of hunting season
lest the flies lay eggs inside my mind
and drive me mad with multiplying
the river ran like a fox from fire
and the birds cried their mourning
I heard it all in the sound of my breathing
in the pounding pulse in my head
then the scent of lavender broke through
all the cognitive dissonance noise
and my open eyes looked to the sky
trying to find the last thread of you.
Monica Deck is an author, recurve archer, and sometimes project manager. Poetry is her first and truest literary love. She is currently pursuing her MFA in creative nonfiction and narrative medicine. She lives in the midwest with one partner, one child, and four cats.
