The Outer Covering – Sarah Dickenson Snyder

A husk, detailed and plush—

a blanket of silk wrapped around

a single ear of corn. That may be enough

proof of a god for me. The hard-shelled cover

of an avocado—how a great force or being

gives protection for a nourishing delicacy

beneath, a skull, too. Mine when I fell

from a bike to a sudden darkening

(and where did I go?)

slowly awakening

but not knowing,

only that a man

held my hand

as I lay in the back

of an ambulance.

Sarah Dickenson Snyder has two poetry collections, The Human Contract and Notes from a Nomad. Poems will appear or have been in The Comstock Review, Damfino Press, The Main Street Rag, Chautauqua Literary Magazine, RHINO, The Sewanee Review, Front Porch, and Whale Road Review.