Two Poems (Hunger Stones & Trace Fossils) – Claire Scott
Hunger Stones
Hunger stones as memorials
hunger stones as warnings
of famine of drought of
emaciated animals, failing crops
of too many bodies to bury
Stones embedded into river banks
in 1417, 1616, 1717, 1842, 1892
carved with words or pictures
to alert people that when the stone is
exposed, the river is perilously low
So many hunger stones now visible
our land parched and burning
revealing the truth buried beneath
A toy gun held by a twelve year old boy
I can’t breathe cried eleven times
a stolen box of cigars, a counterfeit
twenty dollar bill, a man asleep in his car
a man selling loose cigarettes
Hunger stones named Eric Garner,
Michael Brown, Tamir Rice,
Walter Scott, Alton Sterling,
Philando Castile, Stephon Clark
Breonna Taylor, George Floyd
Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine
carved on a hunger stone in the Czech Republic
If you see me, weep
Trace Fossils
“…the sign left in the rock record
by the impress of life rather than life itself.”
Underland by Robert Macfarlane
A dinosaur footprint, eggshells, nests, tooth marks,
tracks, trails all point to life that once was
but left long ago, leaving only a pale echo
The heel bruised steps to your writing room
the dent in the cushion on your reading chair
The Splendid and the Vile open to page 327
a scrabble of books scattered on the floor
the tube of Tom’s squeezed from the middle
your boots and sneakers a-jumble in the hall
the memory of your hands on my body
the stick and sweat, the spike of shiver
I touch the chair, the books, the toothpaste
run fingers over my breasts
Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is also co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
