By Becca J. R. Lachman

I’m ashamed to say it, but it’s taken me this long
             to pick a carcass clean with just my fingers
for the first time, setting aside the good
morsels for a soup bright with dill.
Which one’s the dead thing, and which one
            the maker? And when is it again
            that a shell’s truly useless?

This one will be submerged, savory
            shipwreck in filtered water, with thick
lemon wedges and rosemary. For the first
            day of a new decade, it will sit atop a burner,
            heat pulling and cajoling from its bareness
the very medicine

I need. I’m no witch doctor, no pagan
            goddess wanting to read my

future, maybe even change it. My grief
            tastes of nothing, it’s been boiled
for so long . . . But I’m ready now: give me
fresh thyme,
ginger,
salt.

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Becca J. R. Lachman earned her MFA from Bennington College. Her poetry collections include What I Say to this House, The Apple Speaks, and Other Acreage, and she edited A Ritual to Read Together: Poems in Conversation with William Stafford. Her work has been recognized by the Ohio Arts Council, Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, and has been published in Hunger Mountain, Rattle, and Change Seven Magazine. becca-jr-lachman.com