GRIEF Poem: For CNR, by Sarah Edwards

I sit in this dusty hiker’s lot near Bishop,
California,
in this stupid GMC rental,
unpreparedness and mosquitos having flushed me off the mountain,
spilling me past patriotic larkspur and lollipop lilies
into the manzanita grove.

I wait for my party beneath a layered sand art vista —
a swarth of sturdy pine, beneath which the spade-shaped leaves of
quaking aspen lurch and roll like whitecaps,
whispering your name in a jerky cadence.
Each syllable stabs my heart.

Thoughts of your kisses sweep down from the panorama
of toothy peaks beneath the bleached horizon.
I can almost feel your knuckles brush my cheek.
My face presses into the hollow beneath your shoulder,
a landslide of teeth-sucking, that gasp,
every time you enter me.

Outside the car, I lay myself onto a bed of sharp, burning stones,
close my eyes, and invite the sun to fry my skin
until it shimmers with heat haze.
I exhale and say, come, mosquitos. Feast
on my body. Cover me like a blanket. Penetrate me
with your knifey snouts. Wound me. Pump me full of your saliva.
Drain my blood.

And when I am a leathery, scab-riddled carcass,
like human jerky,
an empty sack of hair and skin,
I say come, buzzards. Snake your ugly, bald heads
through my torso and limbs. Feast
on my memories. Rip out strips of weekend road map,
yank yuppie coffee shop menus, liberate
the lemon twist from an artisanal cocktail.
Sail away and scatter every scrap,
til I am no more.