The Taxidermists Wife

All day my husband works

alone in his studio,

works with his dead animals.

Behind his shut door

a hammer coughs, the sound

of pliers clipping something

off, in half. Some days

I only see his back, hunched

over his worktable as he bends

the wing of a barn owl

just so. Some days

only the outline of his body

when he enters the bedroom,

my shadowed husband,

telling me he's almost done

with the grizzly. All night

I feel the great bear standing

at our bedside, paws raised,

paws that once could swipe

trout from a see-through river.

Yes, my hand used to reach

for my husband like that,

his body awakening

in my palm. Now, something

else: my fingers freeze

above his shoulder, stiff

as the blue jay on the mantle

above the fireplace,

the memory of flight

drained from its wings.