Arsenic Lobster
poetry journal |
Issue Nine Winter 2005 |
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Learning to Leave Things Alone Lissa Kiernan I saw the cat quiver and point. A huddle of gray feathers came into focus in the backyard corner— head down, wings tucked, growing small and still the flies had begun to take notice. I got a shoebox and shooed them all away. When I picked him up, he did not struggle. So I dared to stroke the space between his wings. Claws splayed, striving to find a foothold, and his speckled breast fluttered. Then one last valiant wing stretch, tail rising like a rudder. I set the box in an empty hanging planter, swayed gently by a late May breeze. Days later it occurred to me: the bird would have preferred to have died like we all would— on familiar ground, among best- loved colors. Even with the flies pecking at our eyes. |
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About Lissa Kiernan |