What It All Means, by Yvette Schnoeker-Shorb

My blood sugar is on the rise,
but out here in the badlands
the antelope still run freely
across uneven earth
beneath a cloud-mottled sky;
nothing is perfect.

I watch, somewhere between
appreciation and scrutiny,
anticipating the sharp bite
from a hungry mosquito
positioned on my arm.

Go ahead and dine
on my fine blood
defined by its dangerously
glorious glucose. Drink up,
my tiny, whining friend—
nothing is perfect.

***
Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb’s poetry has appeared in Blue Heron Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Dark Matter: A Journal of Speculative Writing, Aji Magazine, Kudzu House Quarterly, The Write Place at the Write Time, Wilderness House Literary Review, Concho River Review, The Blueline Anthology (Syracuse University Press), Bird’s Thumb, Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built and Natural Environments, Pedestal Magazine, Sleet, and other journals and online forums, with work forthcoming in the anthology Talking Back and Looking Forward: Poetry and Prose for Social Justice in Education (Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2015), Flash Fiction Magazine, Caesura, and others. A past Pushcart Prize nominee, she holds an interdisciplinary MA from Prescott College and is co-founder of Native West Press, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit natural history press.

Yvette Schnoeker-Shorb