Brittany Micka-Foos - Two Poems

Silver Lake

was it silver or gray, when we staggered

west toward the wilderness? A cabin

for a weekend, no reception, just you

and I and the firs and the ryegrass

field blotted with rusted skidders

did it rain all night as we laid on our sunken

mattress, not speaking? I thought

I heard something. Some moonlit animal

slithering. Mostly I remember the amphibious clouds

the hollowed stumps, a wrung-out loneliness uncoiling

It’s a strange thing—

all this breaking down

only to discover we are the dirt

under our own feet

we are the felled trees

and the wind in the tired grass

still shuffling through those old parts

and the moon reflects against the water.

It is bloodless. It will betray

that cut on the lake’s surface:

a serpent slides across, unfurling

in the sheen of rain that

seemingly never ceases

Notes from the Medical Examiner

The torso is unremarkable

The head is atraumatic

The extremities are well-formed and proportionate

He is a case report now. Paper and ash.

Redacted. Struck through. Stowed away

in some file folder, buried in the basement

of a blue-gray government building

The teeth are natural and appear to be in good condition

The chest is symmetrical and stable

The abdomen is soft

They’ve sealed his body

in a pouch, indexed the cold

core of him, a ribcage uncurling,

revealing the point of the break

The corneas are cloudy

the irides are blue

the pupils are round and equal in diameter

What can I make of this

organ donor with poisoned organs?

His saltwater eyes, a litany of

scars and possible scars—

each small abrasion. This immaculate specimen

was my brother

he was perfect. Look

where he fell, cut open on an oyster

shell when he was eight. I can still see

the red of the radial artery slit

screaming, a mouth rent open

rendering: cm surgical scar

on the right anterior wrist

almost but never quite healed

---

Brittany Micka-Foos is an autistic writer from the Pacific Northwest. She is the author of the short story collection It's No Fun Anymore (Apprentice House Press 2025) and the chapbook a litany of words as fragile as window glass (Bottlecap Press 2024). Her work has been published in Ninth Letter, Witness Magazine, Epiphany, The Forge Literary Magazine, and elsewhere.