Melissa Roberts
In 1853, a woman was found on San Nicolas Island, off the southern coast
of California. The woman, known as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas,
had lived alone on the island for 18 years.
The rain comes
or does not come
The sun burns its way through cloud
Or holds back
Another season of rain
The same leak in my whale-bone hut
I sleep alone
and wake more alone
It seems the waves would tire of breaking
day and night
scattering the jagged trail
of algae
and stone I scavenge
come morning There: another
empty exoskeleton
a severed leg’s loosely hinged joint
What’s at hand makes a life:
Shelter
more or less suitable
A dress of feathers plucked
from a dead cormorant
sinew-stitched
to conceal my flesh in the habit
of modesty Hope
that today before the light is lost
someone might find me