3 Poems
BY Dani Couture
Illustration by Thomas Bewick
ATONEMENT
On the side of the highway,
in August, on full stomach,
I picked the already
thin blueberry bushes clean.
And for a year afterward
the bears roamed hungry—
picked off campers in crisp red tents
as they were offered up in return.
FAIR GAME
We are always surprised
to find our cupboards
emptied,
and not politely—cereal boxes
gutted, jam jars bled
of
their sticky red.
No letter on the table,
or money in the mailbox.
Only a door torn off its hinges,
a fresh signature carved
into the
floor. An empty den
in our stomach, a hole
in forest curtain.
COZY CAMP
A black bear sunk
into the wooden planks,
only
the pole of her body
visible as she swims
from couch to fireplace.
Permitted passage, the children
ride on the bearâs
black
furred back, dig their pink
toes into the holes
where the
floorboards
shine through.
