This poem was nominated for The Best of the Net.
Across the dry creek bed, in drifts of silver
snow, a frozen yearling doe reclines
against the mountain slope. Her little legs
splay spindle-straight, the memory of standing
gone frost inside them. Though the snow
below begins to thaw, I want to think
her frozen, kept. A final resting place,
as if any body rests, as if
any place final. Her fur still smooth,
her eyes too and dark. Spring thaws on,
sheds the husk of headwaters down the canyon.
Avalanche lilies erupt from wet
undergrowth like yellow death knells,
bister stamen set to strike, then fall.
KATHERINE INDERMAUR is the author of the chapbook Pulse (Ghost City Press, 2018) and editor for Sugar House Review. She is the winner of the Black Warrior Review 2019 Poetry Contest and the 2018 Academy of American Poets Prize, and was runner-up in the 2020 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Coast|NoCoast, Colorado Review, the Cortland Review, Entropy, Frontier Poetry, Ghost Proposal, the Hunger, the Journal, New Delta Review, Oxidant|Engine, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Colorado State University and lives in Salt Lake City.
