Skull Poem by Judith Skillman

You walked up Tabletop Mountain
And found a skull. A coyote, dog,
Or wolf - you are not sure.
Perhaps a deer. You run
You finger along the teeth:
Yellowed ivories glowing,
Molars' compacted surfaces.
Not a single one missing, the animal
Died young. For the skeletal grin
You feel wistful, even as a man.
Is there a secret you missed
Along the way, a better kind of life
Lived among the ruins of nature
Rather than this entrapment
Where you fight your way through
Each urban day, return to the well-kept
House at night. You walked up Tabletop,
Looked far out to where the shape-shifting
Begins again between brother
And sister mountains twisting
Sunset-colored crepuscules southwest,
Blued by the moon raising its single horn
In the east. When you picked up
The skull it walked with you, breathed
Through eye sockets wide open
As with the sudden shocked surprise -
You are not sure which -
Of being dead or carried in your hand.