Dying Like Eurydice in Idaho’s Backcountry
He brings me here, with no life under me,
sets me to wander the walls of a clapped-together
doublewide that winter reaches its fingers
through—ice thickens the windows. Mice melt
their bobble-headed young onto the broiler—stampede
the compost bin; I’ve found them choked down the necks
of nearly empty beer bottles. Cats bury oily scat
along the graveled driveway. Frogs slump
in corners of the bathtub where I curl up cold
to count my teeth with my tongue: this poisoned dark
is all I have to weep into. Each day when my husband leaves
me alone so he can chase his way across clear rivers and pined
hills he pushes me deeper into this, my snake-bit slumber.
Laura Powers is currently an MFA student at the University of Idaho. She also holds an M.A in Victorian Literature. Some of her poems have appeared in Nimrod and Cimarron Review. Currently, Laura is also poetry editor for Fugue, University of Idaho's literary journal.