Clade Song 10

Bucardo

I was a gently curving horn,

was agile,

drew myself to heights.

I dwindled.

I survived.

Thus the tree that grew collapsed

and I became a preposition to the collapse:

beneath.

A remainder of fur.

A hoof.

Wilderness little different than insemination.

I was an egg hollowed of its contents

and replaced by myself.

Replica mimicking extinction.

I was a lung, a hardening lobe, while

the moving air curved as an ivory horn

and lay still.

Elizabeth Robinson is the author most recently of Rumor (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press). Her book, On Ghosts (Solid Objects) was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in poetry. Recent nonfiction has appeared in Conjunctions and Scoundrel Time. With Jennifer Phelps, Robinson co-edited Quo Anima: innovation and spirituality in contemporary women’s poetry, published in 2019 by University of Akron Press.