At the Station, Eli Holley


Two Earthlings 2, 48X48, John Brosio

 

At the Station

I wonder about the young girl
who pauses in rain-soaked grass
to notice a dead pigeon.

Not content with a glance,
she squats over the bird-body and squints
like she has the sun
in her eyes.

I’m seeing this.

She turns
the glistening data in her mind,
the way fingers might rotate a river stone
to check for some mystery,
or wonder,
or flaw.

She wants to know.
On its breast, a sweaty sore unfolds.
Nobody knows what happened.
Every body knows.

The hand of a woman, immediate
as its perception, coaxes the girl by the arm
toward a different kind of dying.

The other, clings a plastic sack
swollen with groceries, hanging
heavy from curled fingers
like testicles after a hot bath.

Others pass
in and out of focus
like ghosts lost
in skin.

______________
Eli Holley

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