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FOUR WAY REVIEW

Hannah Marshall lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she works at the public library. Marshall’s poems have been published in The Best American Poetry, New Ohio Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in creative writing from Converse University.

FABLE IN WHICH YOU ARE A BARN ANIMAL AND I AM A CARNIVORE by Hannah Marshall

Tuesday, 11 April 2023 by Hannah Marshall
https://fourwayreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Marshall-Fable.wav


Suppose
, you say, it began with the chickens,
the way one wing raised 
could unbalance,
the way they learned
to tilt their heads 
in a concession to gravity, all at once.

Yes! I like it, I say.
The pleasure of synchronicity.
The pigs, being dominant
in cognition, would be next.
They might listen to the rain
and learn rhythm
from the downspout.

Music, it seemed to you,
would be a matter of curled tail
and the scent of hay.
The cows would sing, without 
meaning to. 

I am entranced now: And the dark star
on the forehead of a pregnant heifer
would pulse, and she would moan
the river into the valley. 

You think this lovely, but obtuse.
You say, All night long, the fireflies
make love to the mist,

and in the morning, 
I interrupt,
the fox carries the music away,
warm between her jaws.

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  • Published in ISSUE 26, Poetry
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