When.

Bag

I lost my medicine bag

from back when I believed

in magic. It’s made from a doe’s stomach

and holds grizzly teeth and claw,

stones from Tibet and the moon

the garden and the beach

where the baby’s ashes are buried.

Now I expect this bag to cure my illnesses—

I can’t walk and the skin on my back

pulses and moans without a mouth.

The gods exiled me to this loneliness
of pain for their own good reasons.

Jim Harrison