ELEA CAREY

This Morning Between Four and Six

The warbling percolation of coyotes in the blue black
as I lay beside you
back to breast and hand on hip
you shot at the raccoons in the hen house
but it didn’t do any good
they took off with a live one by the neck
and dragged her through the three by four inch
square of the hog wire and all her feathers came off
enough to stuff a pillow and decorate the headdress of a cannibal king
and we stood upstairs at the window shining out a light
and an empty gun
and watched a mother feed her children on the still leaping
featherless form.

Leda's Blues
by Gary Simmons