Deer Skull

Antlers in the air like a pale boy’s hands

at a metal concert. A sly, defiant look

in its hollowed eye sockets.

I could have been something

like this, something mysterious and clean.

I grew up walking the trails of Pittsburgh parks

named for the industry barons who

carved them into the city landscape:

Carnegie, Frick, Mellon. Among those

soot-soaked trees, I smoked and drank

like something wild. I didn’t get picked over

into bone. I came out of those woods, dazed

and blinking at the lights on Schenley Bridge,

an animal still. Trying and failing

to evolve into someone who knows

how to live in the tamed world.

Onna Solomon’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Hobart, Hopkins Review, and Iron Horse, among others. Her poem “Autism Suite” was awarded the Beloit Poetry Journal’s Chad Walsh Poetry Prize. She lives in Ann Arbor, MI. onna-solomon.com Instagram: @onnasolomon