Eric Fisher Stone
Eric Fisher Stone is a poet from Fort Worth, Texas. He received his MFA and the environment from Iowa State University. His poetry publications include two full length collections: The Providence of Grass from Chatter House Press in 2018, and Animal Joy, from WordTech Editions in 2021, and elsewhere.
Love Song to a Harvest Mouse
I bless your harvest, your whiskers
tender as fizz. The wild trumpets of your ears
cup the wind for a rustling copperhead
that could mix your blood with venom
rotting your raspberry heart.
I can give you nothing you need,
only these words, spoken under chimneys
spicing the autumn stars.
I love your body, your pink feet
tapping grass. I crave your eyes,
the swirled cord of your tail, your prickling snout,
to tell you a billion things,
how squid gush ink in a place called the sea
and other worlds orbit other suns.
Mice live only eighteen months,
enough to learn joy
before the void devours our lives.
One day, the final flower wilts
and the last living cell freezes on Earth.
We are larger than the abyss
when I offer love simple as bread.
Home asleep, I dream of you
running gossamer meadows forever.
Deer Skull
Beyond suburbs, your jaw sleeps
under wind-threshed flails of woodoats.
Ants search the wild kernels
of your teeth. Your brain melts to dirt;
your hooves’ dark plums shrivel
and sprout mistflowers. Once,
your door-slender body leapt
over guardrails, crossing highways
through hellish eggs of headlights.
Perhaps no one remembers
you nuzzling autumn hoarfrost,
printing clay with steps gentle
as ghostberries. Your bones bloom
like cocoons into wings. All flesh
hatches an infinite spring.
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