Invasive Species
Janice Northerns We unpacked in Palo Duro Canyon’s Cow Camp Cabin #3. Roughing it – unless you count microwave, lights, noisy window AC. We’d stopped on the way in for firewood, park brochure warning: Don’t bring your own: a risk of invasive species tagging along. We thought of forefathers who’d invaded this place, drove Comanches out. A cardinal dipped down to drink at the dripping hydrant; cottontail paused as we started up the path, waiting his turn. Some did not concede defeat so easily. Vultures circled each morning, waiting for a misstep. Rat droppings in the fireplace telegraphed their turf. Come midnight, we bolted upright, a racket of bumps, crashes, and clawing scratches at screen calling to mind every tale of crazed serial killers creeping into camp. Though the next day’s search revealed truth—just raccoons hauling corncobs to cabin’s tin roof—on that night we lay paralyzed, as native noise, chilling as any war whoop, drowned out the iced hum of civilization, marking out our graves. |
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About the Author: A native Texan, Janice Northerns currently lives in southwest Kansas, where she teaches English at a community college. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Laurel Review, Chariton Review, Roanoke Review, Southwestern American Literature, descant, and elsewhere. She received a 2018 Tennessee Williams scholarship to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, won second place in Southwest Review’s 2017 Marr Poetry Contest, and is a recipient of the Robert S. Newton Creative Writing Award from Texas Tech University. Read more of her poetry here.