Self-portrait as cavelady Amy Gerstler

Nameless volcanoes vomit rock.Can’t keep cave clean. Swarms of striped flies invade at dusk, bats catch too few.

Tender feeling for baby mammoth as we eat him. Sudden juice-leak from my eyes. I pet baby mammoth’s roasted hide, unfold hairy ear-flap still stuck to skull and whisper into it. Later, take chips of burnt sticks, spit, plus mammoth fat, mixin cup of hand and use paste I make to sketch young mammoth on shadow wall. Make black hand- prints too. Rub mammoth fat on my old, cracked feet. Rub some on scars. Gather fresh dry leaves for sleep. Give baby chunk of tusk to suck so he’ll shut up. His yowls rile wolves, who pace and whine just beyond the all-night fires.

Amy Gerstler lives in Southern California where she teaches college. She has published over a dozen poetry collections, many with Penguin. She will be a featured poet next month at www.corkpoetryfest.net