In the fields, a girl stumbles on the remains of an antelope.
She was hoping for gnomes or gold, not a skull
nestled between a rock and a clump of paintbrush
as if deliberately composed by some amateur painter.
The flesh long since plucked clean by scavengers who,
once full, disbanded to stash each bone
in underground caverns. But not the skull.
That they left behind—too awkward to haul away,
too sturdy to dismantle. A shelter for voles and ground squirrels,
constantly daydreaming of fresh clover and rainstorms
that descend from the mountains almost without warning.Greg Nicholl lives in Baltimore and works in publishing. His poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Boulevard, Crab Orchard Review, Ecotone, Mid-American Review, Natural Bridge, Post Road, Prairie Schooner, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere.