From her open palm sweat rises,
and oil, dust, a thousand exhalations
of the nerves, a thousand more
curious pores clogged with potshards,
clods of dirt, bits of flaked stone,
one or two sharply curved rodent incisors,
empty cicada casings, fragments
of polished shell bracelets, pebbles, twigs,
and a hundred other reminders of death.
From her palm she sees only the candy-red wings
of a ladybird beetle opening in flight.

Ann Walters lives with her husband and two young daughters in the Pacific Northwest. She spent several years working as a physical anthropologist and archeologist in the American Southwest before turning her focus to writing and raising her children. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Poet Lore, Carousel, Poetry International, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Pedestal Magazine, and many others.