forty-five—maybe more—biggies
gliding swiftly on the water before
our shore black gold identical stately
as swans a long trail of geese a bit
bunched here and there I’d heard
them recently across the lake gabbling
fighting maybe just conversing now
profiles that look unwaveringly ahead
a silent egyptian mural going where
I later found their pit stop a grassy
knoll on shore coils of snake-black
poop so huge you couldn’t pick your
way a few feathers too I never saw that
flock again oh maybe three skimming the
surface but never that long string of
regal waterfowl making the lake its own
This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 4, 2013.
