I always knew it would end like this:
a cold night, around the end of March,
when I snowshoe out to a woodshed
and reach for some last pieces of dry oak,
embers of sunset already turning ashy,
and you rise from a bed of torn hay bale,
blinking, for I’ve disturbed your sleep,
dead weeds tangled in your auburn hair,
staring at me through rheumy black eyes,
your biting criticism finally failing you;
in old England they would have hounded you
for your beauty and purity of white breast,
but here in New England you bounded
over stone walls in your own steeplechase,
kits running around as you played vixen,
so I retreated from the outbuilding silently,
shivering woodless through a subzero night
as ice clinked in rivers flowing like cocktails,
and in the morning you were for the ages,
tail swept over your face like a fur collar.
Matt Bernier
Matt Bernier lives on an old farm in Pittsfield, Maine, and works professionally as a civil and environmental engineer, working to restore sea-run fish like endangered Atlantic salmon to rivers in the Northeast. His poetry has appeared in many Maine-based publications and online journals, including the Maine Sunday Telegram's Deep Water column and Maine Public's Poems From Here. In 2023 he was the winner of the Maine Postmark Poetry Contest affiliated with the Belfast, Maine poetry festival.
