There is a June Bug carcass
tethered to the window screen
as if by specters. Each storm
passing by rattles all it left behind.
Its exoskeleton no longer a deep chestnut
now caramel-colored & full of wind.
I’ve watched it for days,
a crater where its body erupted.
Somehow, despite the loss,
it hangs onto the screen
as if its memory is enough
to stitch its body in place.
Is this the death you warned me about?
One foot planted in the endless past.
Dear Bone Mother
Minadora Macheret is a Herbert Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her Ph.D. from the University of North Texas. She received the James Merrill Poetry Fellowship from Vermont Studio Center. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Salamander, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She is the author of, Love Me, Anyway (Porkbelly Press, 2018).