Poetry Magazine
Good Year
January. I pluck it,
this feather flapping in the high mesquite
only head-high, caught by the down,
iridescent, turkey. Another
feather hugging the ditch
along the fence line and another...
A coyote somewhere naps
happy, grinning like the feather
evolved from a leaf. What luck.
Clouds lift above the field
as if to swallow my eye
into hunger. Good hunger.
The greatest eye must
behold me like an ember
dropped into a finch nest,
and I smoke at the mouth
like a gun dreaming in a safe
of a war it can win by virtue
of its praise. I have lost
the killer phrase I concocted
on my country walk
with the feather in my pocket.
I cock it.
Source: Poetry (October 2012).
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Nature, Animals, Landscapes & Pastorals, Winter, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets
Poetic Terms Free Verse
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