WREN JONES

At dinner out to celebrate our daughter’s
  20th birthday my ex offers me soup 

ladles a small bowl of ramen 
passes it down the table — 
our children cup it along.

These small acts 
of kindness have always 
gutted me, forget about 
the bigger losses.
 
I stretched my arms out to him 
for a decade, asked him to suture 
my heart, too much blood, 
he said, too messy.

Took myself to the forest
and laid down 
on a mound of soft 
pine needles.

An untended foal, aching 
for a lick, I wept until the ground 
grew thick with ferns
and my liver grew a cyst.

A brown bear ambled over,
sniffed at my swollen gut
move on, it said,
before you’re eaten up.