Pilgrim
She invents wilderness
out of absence, erases houses,
the husband, the sewer pipe
and the suburb it empties.
Leaving the sparrow, the snake.
Daily walks in her Virginia suburb
minus the curb. Biographers
struggle to account for these years
in the wilderness, the housewife
off hiking. Maybe her Virginia should be
a West Virginia: wilder, less money,
the creek a holler
not this empty cul-de-sac.
Some days she erased all but the air,
maybe the light. Husband
of the space bar, carpool
a clean section break. She became
a man in the wilderness
and won the Pulitzer.
I told the truth, she said,
only I left some out.
What rises in such a clearing?
What stays home
checking and re-checking the egg.
Copyright Credit: Megan Snyder-Camp, "Pilgrim" from The Gunnywolf. Copyright © 2016 by Megan Snyder-Camp. Reprinted by permission of Bear Star Press..
Source: The Gunnywolf (Bear Star Press., 2016)