Eric Nelson

Eric Nelson’s previous books include Horse Not Zebra (Terrapin Books, 2022); Some Wonder (Gival Press, 2015), Terrestrials (Texas Review Press, 2004), and The Interpretation of Waking Life (Arkansas, 1991). His poems have appeared in many journals, including The Sun, Oxford American, Poetry, The Southern Review, Verse Daily, and Poetry Daily, and he has new poems forthcoming in Rattle, The Valparaiso Review, and Litmosphere. Since 2015, Eric and his wife have lived in Asheville, NC, after a long career teaching at Georgia Southern University.

Scorpions

Whenever we returned to the cabin
we found them—two or three
shriveled as scabs in the bathtub.

We tweezered one and looked it up—
its kind common, solitary, sting
less painful than a bee’s.

Before bed we shook the covers.
In the morning we showered
scanning the tongue-and-groove.

We didn’t put our boots on
until we turned them upside
down and banged them hard.

Of course we answered their venom
with our poison. We never stopped
expecting them—tails curled

to a needle’s point, pinchers raised—
to emerge from the stove, slip out
from under the shoe molding.

They kept us aware of the smallest
tremble, every jagged shadow crawling
away from sunlight. Outside we took

notice like never before—to mist
rising from the pond and settling
on our skin. To leaf rustle, to rot and moss.

Whenever we returned, the children
ran to check the bathtub for bodies,
as if they were the reason we came.