Grief, The Wandering Doe

by

Linda Cooper

The forest is ripe with what was.
Tiny claws and beaks. Scattered fur clouds.
Urine-soaked detritus in small mounds.
There are no apologies. No eulogies.
Only bones and disturbed leaves.
The trees understand.

Linda Cooper lives in Ronald, Washington and teaches creative writing at Washington Outdoor School. She completed her MFA at Eastern Washington University and her poems have been published in Verse Daily, Hayden’s Ferry Review, West Branch, Many Mountains Moving, Willow Springs, Third Coast, Tupelo Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, Permafrost, Hubbub, Elixir, Diner, Pontoon, and many more. She also won the 2015 Orlando Prize for Poetry and the 2022 Allied Arts Foundation Prize. Her chapbook, Blue, a Waltz, will be published by Floating Bridge Press in 2023.