Aurelia Kessler | Genuflect | Glass: A Journal of Poetry

June 2020

Aurelia Kessler

Genuflect

My daughter is a dragon my son a sleeping bear, a raven. I am flashing silver splashing upstream fading to damp green and purple ribbons. This is my body broken for you split open down the middle flayed by heavy claws wet nose and hot breath rooting between my ribs. Worms carve channels in my flesh wriggling through my small animal brain half-eaten by bears, by dragons. I listen for the whistle of eagles wait for the ravens to peck out my eyes. I give willingly my guts to the green earth. There are lupines blooming in my eye sockets a spruce tree climbing out of my chest reaching for the winter sun that sets too early.

This poem arose out of the confluence of motherhood and landscape. These things order my life in many ways, and it feels holy to pay attention, to notice. In the late summer, I take my kids to Steep Creek for the sockeye salmon run. From a viewing platform, we watch bears plod through the water, some more skillfully than others. The rotting bodies of sockeye litter the banks. They are laid open and half eaten. We also go to Sheep Creek for the chum run. Chum are the least desired of the Pacific salmon species. They begin to rot even as they swim upstream to spawn. Their once bright silver bodies are now green and mottled with purple streaks. Their skin is peeling. Sometimes bones stick out of their fins. It's grotesque. And yet, it's beautiful. This is the end of their life journey. They give up their lives for the next generation of their species. Motherhood has never required that sacrifice of me, but in some ways, it does feel like my chest has been laid open. Children take, but what they take, I give willingly.

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