Bow Season by Sarah Elkins

The deer carcass
in the rough beside the trail
reduced to a row
of slender white ribs
reaching out from the ruin
of wet leaves
like too many fingers.

The flowers of her body—
bloom of intestine,
broad red-leaf of liver,
great elephant-ear lungs,
and rosebud heart—
didn’t last one good night.



Sarah Elkins lives and writes in Lewisburg, WV. Her poetry has appeared in Sanskrit Literary Arts Magazine, Northridge Review, Summer Stock Journal, and Rust + Moth; her critical analysis in Kestrel. Sarah is a student in the MFA program at Pacific University.