Porcupine
She plowed her potato fields at night.
The local farmers whispered, vampire.
Sunlight drained her body, darkened
the butterfly rash across her cheeks.
She was 27—illness had claimed her
spleen, gallbladder, & uterus,
& she could barely walk
or bathe herself—when the doctor
ran his finger down the test results
& told her Bad News. Lupus.
There is no cure.
After her husband backed over a porcupine
in their driveway, she took in its red-eyed baby,
let the orphan gnaw on a broken-down shed
because it was greedy for the salty wood.
During the day, when the sun's rays
scorched the earth, she stayed inside,
vacuuming flies off the ceiling
& sketching for solace—
carving light into the dark
charcoal with her rubber eraser
& cracking the stiff joints
of her milk-blue hands.
She wanted visitors to call first,
but all her doors stood open—strange
pickaxes & wire strippers prickling
on the walls, Chinese lacquer,
wicker, baggies full of hair
that had fallen out—& sometimes
the porcupine woke from its bed of straw
& waddled indoors, raising
its barbed quills & swatting its tail
at the dogs that snapped at its head.
It would bristle up her leg
onto her lap. Be real still, she'd say
to the few friends who came by.
Pet him in one direction only.