I’m fascinated by how both science and poetry center awe, discovery, the unknown, and attention to details and pattern. This poem emerged from a Smithsonian article on pinnipeds which evoked questions about relics, grief, and remembering; how does the ecological environment influence how we grieve and remember? What can relics (a skeleton, a poem) evoke and what do they emit? This poem grapples with this as a scientist and as a daughter grieving my mother.

Dr. Jessica Bell Rizzolo is a conservation scientist and poet based in Chicago, Illinois. Her academic writing has been featured in Global Ecology and Conservation, Nature Conservation, Society & Animals, Frontiers in Conservation Science and elsewhere. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Humana Obscura, Salamander, Sublunary Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Literary Mama, and Memorious. She has participated in the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Winter Workshop, and the Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop.