ornate kraken
The cats bring home pieces—
a wing, still twitching.
Something's liver, dark as wet earth
between their teeth.
I live alone with them now,
these small murderers who purr
against my ankles at dawn,
their breath metallic with secrets.
The neighbor's porch light burns out.
No one replaces it.
I count seventeen days
of watching her house go dark
room by room until only
the blue glow of television
flickers like a dying pulse.
There's a deer carcass
by the highway, ribs exposed
white as piano keys.
I drive past it twice daily—
to work, from work—watching
the crows take what they need,
methodical as surgeons.
At the grocery store,
the meat department smells
like the inside of mouths.
I buy chicken breasts wrapped
in plastic, their flesh pale
and forgiving. The butcher
waves from behind glass,
his apron mapped with rust-colored stains.
Back home, I feed the cats
from cans, watch them lap
at gravy that looks like blood
thinned with water.
They know something about hunger
I've forgotten—how to take
what's offered, how to leave
the bones clean.
The house settles into silence.
I sit at the kitchen table
cutting strawberries, the knife
slicing through skin so easily,
red juice pooling on white cutting board
like something I'll have to clean up
and never do.
Outside, the deer is smaller now.
The crows have been working
all week. Soon there will be nothing left
but bone and sinew—
vertebrae scattered like prayer beads
along the shoulder of the road.
The cats curl around my feet,
their small hearts beating
against my shins. I am learning
to live with this tenderness,
this daily inventory of what remains
when everything soft
has been stripped away.
vocal hazel
bitter zodiac
hollow oyster