All day my husband works
alone in his studio,
works with his dead animals.
Behind his shut door
a hammer coughs, the sound
of pliers clipping something
off, in half. Some days
I only see his back, hunched
over his worktable as he bends
the wing of a barn owl
just so. Some days
only the outline of his body
when he enters the bedroom,
my shadowed husband,
telling me he's almost done
with the grizzly. All night
I feel the great bear standing
at our bedside, paws raised,
paws that once could swipe
trout from a see-through river.
Yes, my hand used to reach
for my husband like that,
his body awakening
in my palm. Now, something
else: my fingers freeze
above his shoulder, stiff
as the blue jay on the mantle
above the fireplace,
the memory of flight
drained from its wings.
Reprinted from Long Beach poet David Hernandez's A House Waiting for Music (Tupelo Press)
