Leslie Peterson- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

SOREN LIT

SOREN LIT Podcast- Summer issue 2021. www.sorenlit.com

Podcast Host and Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers

Leslie Peterson

Leslie Peterson grew up in rural middle Georgia, and lives there still, working for a local non-profit and trifling occasionally with poetry and stories. When she's not working or writing, she can be found wrangling a plethora of creatures from cats to quail or coaxing her hazard garden to grow...

i, too, collect bones

by Leslie Peterson

if it doesn't fit,

force it into the joint.

but I digress—first,

you must excavate.

golden relics,

samite,

red mud, hydria,

hercules beetle horns,

shrike wings,

harvestmen fangs and legs

that still writhe after death.

sweep it all away

and dig up the bones

of your mothers.

the teeth of a woman

who stood before the mastodon,

spear in hand,

screaming hoarse triumphs.

the humerus of she

who stood with sword of iron

between intruder and heir,

trembling in fear.

the ossicles that listened

on the edge of the bluff

to the wild ocean roar

and dove into the roiling foam

like a bird of prey

and came up for salty air—

despite

despite

despite

—and did it with a laugh,

for spite.

do not let them rest.

build yourself from their spines and

skint-bare knuckles, and,

let them haunt you.