Julie L. Moore

We’d expected this,

their naked, red heads

ducking deep into the flesh of a fox

dead for days—drawn to its suffocating scent

lingering like sweat on the hot road—

their ivory bills peeling back the sorrel fur,

picking meat off the bones.

It was dinner for two.

But when a car approached, their wings sprung open

propelling them around our yard. Mid-loop—

what surprise!—a red-winged blackbird

popped out of the Black Locust nearby,

hopping onto the thick back of one vulture,

screaming like a thrill rider 

as the mute scavengers flew two laps low,

then landed, finally shook him off,

and walked back to their meal.

And soon enough,

only the pelt remained upon the pavement

like a hunter’s splayed-out rug awaiting the traipse

of traffic, the stench like the birds,

hanging around death

somewhere else.

Driving beneath a rising

helix of blackbirds,

autumn rain

ushering in my fifth month

of impervious pain, this day

is different, not because long lines coil

around polls, not because the temperature

hovers at 60 degrees,

not even because the birds seem

to sweep the rain

up with them

so drops no longer

land on my windshield,

but because I want

to go with them,

to spiral up into the gray

like Elijah, sailing through

those saturated clouds,

shedding my clothes,

my damaged flesh, my

bones, candidate for heaven

who just leaves this world,

this dominion of skin.

What was it like

in such premature burial,

tossed into another’s tomb,

ears deaf to the men’s

shouts beyond you,

feet numb to the pebbles

pressing upon them,

breath escaped like a prodigal son,

and eyes blind to the prophet

dead beside you?

Sudden and insane,

you collided with his frame,

lingering power of God

seeping from his side

infusing your soul,

and once again,

you heard your heartbeat

suffocating silence, you found breath,

coughing dust from your chest, your toes

dug into the ground below them,

you saw light.

And you knew your place,

as though you were Adam

emerging again from clay,

the bones of Elisha having released you

from your grave.

Scattered throughout our lawn this fog-

infused morning, gauzy hammocks

hang, each stretching from tip

to tip of lean summer blades,

dew-drenched,

sagging as though a tiny body

invisible and round

lies napping,

the weavers working

within the earth this calm dawn,

last night’s storms

now distant as a deist’s god,

while Maggie, as we wade through

the grass, her young black snout

plunging through sheet after tissue-thin sheet

of silk, sneezes ...

Parting the white thick air

we roam farther down the road

where more threads appear,

this time knitting together

square upon wire

square in the corn field’s

fence and like sails,

inhaling the sea-like breeze,

evidence everywhere

that the spiders do exist

among us, though we’ve seen none thus far,

though the only discernible sound

is traffic on a state road

howling in the distance ...

Water running uphill—

    that, you don’t forget—

        and it’s quite the sensation

to shift into neutral, feel your car

    picking up speed as you

        sail upwards with the stream,

or so it seems—the brain

    just can’t comprehend it.

        I was too young then

to understand, but now I find

    an old postcard my mother

        had saved in her scrapbook

and see the contours of the land

     induce the illusion, the magnet

        is the same there as elsewhere,

the ride works best when you

    silence your engine,

        let go the brake.