Produced by Dennis Camire
By Yourself
By Sonja Johanson
There used to be a zoo
on the island, for the tourists.
They had baby lynx, fallow deer,
colobus monkeys. In the side
pasture were bison.
It was barely spring. Driving
toward the bridge, a female
was alone, back of the field.
I knew nothing about bison,
barely anything of cattle, even.
But she moved wrong, moved
in a way that made me pull
my car over to the muddy
shoulder, stomach clenched.
I watched her arch and heave.
It took only minutes. Her haunches
buckled as something large and dark
slid to the dead grass. She turned
to lick her calf alive. I sobbed and shook
all the long drive over the causeway.
Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu.
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