Poem of the Week

The Wounded Otter  by Michael Hartnett

A wounded otter
on a bare rock,
a bolt in her side,
stroking her whiskers,
stroking her webbed feet.

Her ancestors
told her once
that there was a river,
a crystal river,
a waterless bed.

They also said
there were trout there
fat as tree-trunks
and kingfishers
bright as blue spears--
men there without cinders
in their boots,
men without dogs
on leashes.

She did not notice
the world die
nor the sun expire.
She was already
swimming at ease
in the magic crystal river.

from Michael Harnett's Selected & New Poems