Grant Clauser(3 poems)
The Way Back
After hiking the horseshoe loop,
I build a campfire, pour a tin cup
of wine, then coffee,
listen to rain on the cabin roof
and think about how
there are so many points
where things could go one way
or another. I could have followed
the blue-blaze trail, reached the ridge
before sundown or taken the lower trail
by the lake following the crazy duck calls
and hunters coughing in their blinds.
Hours later rain has snuffed the fire
and I'm halfway to being two-thirds
drunk. Sometimes going back
is tougher than going forward.
Regret a hard cousin of inertia
the way brothers will keep moving
apart once one stops talking
and another takes that for an answer.
I think how birds' thin bones
can hold onto the whole sky,
the world just a small trembling thing
shrinking beneath them.
Box Turtles
My father had to stop me
when the collection reached eight,
and he found me walking a road at night,
flashlight scouting the shoulder for more.
I can't truthfully say if it was reverence
or envy for the way they carried
their burdens everywhere. I was only ten
or eleven, knew I liked how slowly
they walked, easy to catch, trusting
in the sureness of their shells,
how even wild they'd open up quickly,
explore the pen I built for them in the yard,
and soon enough they'd take food
directly from my hands.
How can you not love an animal
who's body is hinged and hardened
against the world, but will stop
in the middle of a road
to stretch out its neck, testing
how many cars will pass overhead.
Feral
It's true he snarled like an animal
and ran on all fours, not like a wolf,
but more a gargoyle or the imp from
Fuseli's Nightmare, and despite the smell
and dirty fingernails, became the toast
of the town, a court favorite of the duke.
And for a while after the bar for what counts
as a man was lowered, included the occasional
growl from deep in the belly, pissing
where he ate his food and always
the need to look out through an open window
and dream of running again, hunger
pulling fear from his limbs, anger
at the permutations of seasons, what
the moon did to the wolves, what
the wolves did to the lamb until what,
finally became of him was lost,
where grunts and the tendency
to hoard meat made him just another
speechless spectacle the village, half-
wild, this Hyde-image of a man
Grant Clauser is the author of five books including Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven (winner of the Codhill Press Poetry Award) and Reckless Constellations (winner of the Cider Press Poetry Award). Poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Cortland Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Poet Lore, Tar River Poetry and others. He works as an editor and teaches at Rosemont College.