Funny how the inside of a femur
looks just like sponge cake.
But bones to dust and dust to soil
and soil to seed and seed to stalk
and stalk to grain and grain to meal,
I will eat that cake someday, that
sponge cake with the frosting of death.
—Ross Lake National Recreation Area
Paul Willis is a professor of English at Westmont College and a former poet laureate of Santa Barbara. He recently served as an artist-in-residence in North Cascades National Park in the state of Washington. His latest collection is Getting to Gardisky Lake (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2016).