Samantha Mineo Myers teaches at Boston University and lives with her family in southeastern Massachusetts.
After Giving Up Meat
Encounters with animals became more dramatic:
white moths circled my bedlamp; fearless mice
grazed in the candy dish. Divining mercy,
one thin fox groomed his coat in the driveway
and a mother turkey policed her pups
from the stoop. It wasn’t their faith
I wanted, or even their forgiveness;
their existence was enough, and even that
I was content to imagine. Dogs strained
their leashes as if I were St. Francis himself;
a goshawk buzzed my windshield like a cuff
on the arm: Howdy. The nibbling buck
raised his forest of antlers in greeting
and I knew my distaste: I was certain their mouths
would open and speak; I feared their confidences.