There was pond scum here
Coating the water’s surface
She circled
Trailing a path
Of desiccated leaves
That obscured all evidence
Of the exceedingly plump groundhog
That called this hill home
She’d once written a poem long ago
About a groundhog’s destruction
And her raking pond scum into a trap
Altering the surface
But not what lurked underneath
The redwood-wrapped house
Overlooking another body
Half a country away
And still hunted by water-loving vermin
She’d learned to see the beauty
In the floating green fur
But the smell of decay and rot lingered
Even after she removed herself
Far from the original source
Salon Z 