Two Poems by Paul David Adkins

 

The Witnesses to Bigfoot

It has been said that only

the depressed, the anxious, the disassociates, are allowed

to see the Bigfoot.  Only those

we cannot trust to discern

the truth can spy its eight-foot frame

lumber amid the timber.

The skeletons we found, 

the experts term deer.

The bipeds, bears foraging for berries.

What cries we hear are cries, we're told,

the woods ceaselessly surrender.

Until who can we believe?

Those who wandered from us, humming

within the wood line,

or rocking at midnight in the palmettos,

stroking armadillos,

each one to a shine.

Native Names for a Simian Cryptid

For "Bigfoot," the Natives had 1,000 names

but only one opinion:

leave it alone.

Leave its mystery in fog.

Leave the infrequent couplings unspied,

and call the howling bobcats.

Let the birthing spillage crust in meadow grass,

nourish flies for miles.

Let the stillborn burst its maggot stitching unwatched.

Let no one see 

the bones dissolve to loam,

the skull, thin as an egg.

Its brain registering

as a glowworm pulses in a frog's belly.

Paul David Adkins earned an MFA from WashU.  In 2013, Kind of a Hurricane Press published his chapbook, The Great Crochet Question.  Journal Publications include Spillway.  He has received two Best of the Net and six Pushcart nominations as well as the 2019 Central NY Book Award for Poetry.