Skull

It’s been in our family

for nearly twenty years,

killed across the calm

waters of the sound

on verdant spring flats

of the wide-mouthed delta.

The skinned body left

in a dumpster, he, part

scientist, part lover, dived

the dump to retrieve,

to sink it into saltwater

below his office on the docks.

Fishing boats swayed, left,

returned, filled with fish,

with snow, ice, meltwater,

swayed, left. He pulled up

from sea the young wolf’s

skeleton, and parceled

out sea-scoured bones

to friends and their children,

some who grew to be

trappers wanting more

than bone. Some carried

their bone like talisman. Some

trying to gain strength

in the wake of a cancer

ground theirs and drank.

One gripped the bone so tight

in death that fingers

had to be pried open. The skull

he kept, gave, when we joined,

to me, sits on my top shelf,

brought down while I wrote

of a man who gave his life

to studying wolves, wanting

us to see how they, too,

care for their young and each

other, wanting us

to see past tooth and claw

to tender underbelly.

This skull smooth

with time and the sea, I lift

it to the shelf, book done,

bottled message out,

and feel in my finger

a sharp pain. Quick bite.

A splinter, bone shard, under

my skin and I don’t pull it out.