A lyrical account of Yellowstone’s iconic fauna.

BY YETTA ROSE STEIN

Bright, tender bison were born again
this year right around Mother’s Day,
hallowed copper resurgence speckling verdant hills.

We stopped our car to swallow the rite:
callow tottering calves hopping behind matriarch mammoths
caddisflies landing on brown tanned hunched backs.

Reminisced what we could not see:
endless grass oceans marbled with penny-colored beasts.
We yearned for witness and quiet. We were too late.

When we drove the 113 miles home, we prayed:
in the end times, we’ll lose.
Make me weeds under hoof.

Yetta Rose Stein reads and writes in Livingston, Montana. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Another Chicago Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is a founding member of the Mug Club, the assistant managing editor of Hunger Mountain Review, and a board member of the Intermountain Opera. She is a graduate of Hellgate High School and is pursuing her MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.