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East Side Road
You built a fire for me
With your hands in the flame
“Used to the oven’s heat,”
I winced at the idea of pain.
You dove into dark water perfectly
Unafraid of touching bottom;
I sunbathed self-consciously,
Fins forgotten.
You carried me to Greece:
Flat rocks in the moonlight
(Made me imagine it at least)
And kissed me as I thought you might.
You rescued me from my secret grove
And we drove away in your mustang;
Now I strain to hear that engine rev
On a road miles and miles away.
LCS 
My Woods In Winter
When I settled at Nixie’s Vale, a nod to Tennyson,
A small cape at the foot of Rattlesnake Mountain,
Rare blue butterflies flit from a black ash seep,
An ecosystem valued by the Wabanaki people
For the basket-grade texture of the trees’ bark;
I studied economic botany in college, but then
Distracted myself with conservation plans,
Policies and “best management practices,”
And the accompanying fact sheets, which
I posted online (to save paper).
In winter, without leaves, most of my trees
Lean in white arches, doors to other worlds,
Witches’ brooms at an imaginary threshold,
Or so I liked to believe, as a child of whimsy.
Since living here beside a freshwater pond,
I’ve learned about the vortex, a crossway
For the spirits of warriors and healers.
A perennial stream carries rainwater down
Off the mountain, through underground
Tributaries intersecting in a fern-filled gully
Spilling into what was once known
As “Little Rattlesnake Lake.”
Like my trees, I am a pioneer, and thrive
Even in disturbed areas, and I somehow
Hold the sunken soils together and live
Protected from storms, my curly crown
Golden-rust-colored and silky, hairy tips
And tapered branchlets like fingers run
Over pale conspicuous scars, ripened cups
Whorled and heart-shaped shields, sun
Dried, revealing the broken-off ends
That once supplied water to downy buds.
I am broad and thornless, a windbreaker
My father raised me to nibble wintergreen
And build lean-tos; I cool the temperature
Dangle catkins, a snowy, pine-needled scene;
Write a ragged understory, which needs cutting:
It’s taking seed—overgrown, too pendulous,
In the pithy soft inner core of me, all foreseen,
Long foretold in pages I once loved to read—this
Sturdy soul’s rooted in Hawthorne’s hometown.
-Leah C. Stetson
Poet’s note: This poem is part of a 30/30 Poetry Challenge in support of the Tupelo Press. Please consider making a donation or subscribing to one of their fine publications.
Night Boys
Night boys
revving and rumbling
‘round the lakes,
curvy back roads
empties tumbling
last lap, another pass by
that curvy ex-girlfriend’s
he used to pull in, cry
flash his high beams
like he was jacking deer
just to see her; he dreams
the shifty rites of coydogs
tilted heads, truck howls
farther from the city,
the louder the engine
mostly for show, mostly
testosterone, bravado
when each is on his own
safe among the familiar,
bearded, the evening air
cloaks them like flannel
the skin of their kin
—but in these rural
open parts, the alpha male
leads his pack of boyhounds
to lay claim to territory,
mark their mates, the females,
defend their hunting grounds
delineated on a mental map
instinctual, his birthright.
Everybody says it:
but they’re good boys.
Hey, they got a permit.
The sexual anthropologist
compares: the urban kind,
who can’t stand itchy fists
confuse boundary lines
blocks, streets, city limits
quell the pseudo-wolfsong
sweaty stench of cowardice
make mischief out of some
dark gut-wrenched wrong
a restless yearning
for hills and fields
streams and ponds
sends them wilding
in sharp back alleys
abandoned buildings
a taste for the tally
tall teetering girls, homeless,
elders, a sally—the night boys
keep score like sports fans,
in athletic pants, too baggy,
they lope through the shadows
a trail behind them that mimics
their every move, the marrow
that gnaws back, a raw sickness,
thick with fur they shave off
to hide their otherness,
even from each other
take turns maiming
after-slaps, fraternal
caresses, a primordial
taming of the running shoe.
The scent of gunsmoke
hangs in the midnight mist
descends on the Mainiacal ones
who know whose buckshot
narrowly missed
deep in the belly
of the forest.
~Leah C. Stetson
This poem is part of a 30-poem series in support of the nonprofit Tupelo Press. Please consider making a charitable donation (tax deductible) to support this wonderful literary press. When you donate, please indicate that the donation is “in honor of” or mention my name in the notes field on the PayPal page for your donation. That way the staff at the Tupelo Press will know that it is from this 30/30 poetry challenge and my fundraising efforts. Thank you!
The Adventures of Fen Fatale ~ Ecoheroine 