worms squirm
through eye sockets
and nasal cavities,
maggots
feast
on left-over strips
of putrefied flesh
hanging spaghetti-like
from the cranium
of a severed skull,
mandible agape
frozen in an eternal
muted scream –
a skull,
severed
from its former body
bound and found
in a different part
of the woods
Fern G. Z. Carr is a former lawyer, teacher and past President of both the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Project Literacy Kelowna Society.