Their Antlers Vibrate 

I wish you could see what I see… 
—letter from Georgia O’Keeffe, NM to Alfred Stieglitz, NY 

When she left him, again  
and again, made her way  
faraway—the dead all around  

where she gathered bones  
instead of flowers— 
I imagine her 

with the broken part. Did she 
live with the splinters  
as if a cracked mirror? Gaze 

into a single, smooth corner 
and find everything there 
still whole: the bleached  

cliffs, stripped carcasses,  
twisted cedar limbs—all  
ripe for resurrection? 

You’ve got to have nerve,  
she said, grafted herself 
onto the desert where  

she made the pelvic cavities  
of stags brim  
with Southwest sky,  

their antlers vibrate,  
floating and fleshy,  
while the canvas holds  

just a bouquet of bones 
looming over  
the mountain. She tucked  

a pink calico rose  
in the socket of a horse’s skull
so it could see beyond  

the sand and dust.  
In their five thousand letters 
is she there  

or between the lines—
satisfaction or hunger?
I could believe both.

I marvel at her search
for the wideness
and the wonder, giant

pinwheeling jimson weeds
around her. How she turned
their wild roots into gold.

MARIA SURRICCHIO

Maria Surricchio is originally from the UK and now lives near Boulder, Colorado. She began writing poetry in 2020 after a long marketing career. Her work has been widely published and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She holds a BA in Modern Languages from Cambridge University and is pursuing an MFA at Pacific University.