HARBINGERS by Tory Adkisson
There are kettles of vultures
resting on the stove.
Some apple cores
rotting in the trash.
Our home’s a monastery,
kestrels hang
from the ceiling like tiny
bells. You get angry
whenever I ask too many
questions, but my gullet
hangs open, thirsty
for answers.
Every day’s a black hole
with a pinprick of swallow
-tails at its center.
I’m so thirsty for answers,
when they start falling
I’m sure to drown
along with the turkeys.
You know I’m too impatient
to do other
-wise. I disregard
every tender gesture,
every kiss & caress,
dancing in a pirouette
of pink flamingoes, perfectly
en pointe & still reckless.
I don’t regret teaching
you how to hate
in articulated syllables—
when you call me a fucker,
I can’t help but smile
at my own voice parroted back.
If it weren’t for the cudgel
of larks lurking in your iris, I’d
wonder if your darkness
were different than mine.
Day after day of this heart
-ache & still you fly back
to me, puffing up
your chest, ostentatious, pea
-cocked & loaded. You don’t like it
when I burn the dinner,
or spill the tea, when
the porcelain
of my throat’s
too clotted with leaves.
You don’t like that I might
give away the future
if I speak. You never want to know
what’s coming;
you never want to think
about after. You’d rather
drink the future
& just as soon
forget it, whether jasmine
or mint, oolong
or honey. Meanwhile
I’m growing ever more
vestigial & ornery.
There’s just no saving us.
The ravenous woodpeckers
& twittering
sparrows watch from
the safety of the trees. They know
one day someone’s going
to shoot us down & all
this noise, all this rage
we harbor, will mean nothing
when we’re nothing
but a pair of omens
nestled in the dirt, waiting
without wings, to be savaged.
Issue 4 Contents NEXT: Autoimmune by Micaela Mascialino
