Elan Mudrow
Smidgens
Tectonic Plates
Cathy is in the twilight heat
Before the summer night
Moves like tectonic plates.
She tells me stories
Of shooting people in Vietnam
During the war
The rifle she used is under her bed.
I saw it when she asked me
To feed Molly while on vacation,
Cathy took her wife to Canada
To watch the dwindling caribou migrate.
It’s such a plain rifle, worn
Its wood stain nearly all rubbed off
The barrel dull, black and textured.
She drives hundreds of miles
To watch the caribou.
Cathy is in the twilight heat.
The sun is an orange throb.
She tells me how she used to hunt,
Southeast Oregon, Steens Mountain
Hauled back all of the animal
Limb by limb, organ by organ
Buckets of blood and fat.
I don’t like it when the sunrise is hazy
Cathy throws seeds to two blue jay parents
They’re always uptight, worried,
Especially when Molly chews grass near them.
A grey squirrel gnaws on antlers
In Cathy’s backyard. Antlers decades old.
A sprinkler chases the drought.
8 Comments on “Tectonic Plates”
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Elan Mudrow 
Awesome poem! And so descriptive in detail! 💫
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Thank you Elan. It is such an amazing journey to have a life grow inside of you and then to let it fly away to live the life it dreams of. I have two amazing sons.
I so enjoy your writing. Keep sharing your voice.
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Thanks David.
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Thanks Ali. I read your poem about your son. I wish him and you good things from the bottom of my heart.
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the photo reminds me of some Dave McKean stuff, which, of course rules, loved the last line also…
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How much of our past stories make up who we are and what do we choose to hide about ourselves? This is full of summer heat and questions.
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The portraitist in you is never far from the surface. I enjoy this poem. I like the grit of the photo, too.
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Oh my ! Just , Oh my !
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