by Flossie Hedges
Is this how lakes are made?
Plow a pit to the road and wait for rain?
One day, there are some ducks floating in our clay earth.
Floating in our unfired cup one day, there is a swan.
By coil and litterbox coop and the sugar white dog
that barks the land, they all survive each night and
so become the least interesting exhibit.
In their place, I find the ridge barreled utility blue,
a kid’s candied grin, one day.
There are doors cut into each tooth, with sawtooth jambs
and straw sticking out like dinner spinach.
Rows of roosters take to the barrels’ tops, crow now
at all hours, working overtime in a barnyard clock shop
where the owner’s taken ill.
The lake turns from imperfect amber stock to Yoo-Hoo,
and I hear my bird-sense holler, sick:
What next? Some mosquitos? An unmanned drone?
Even the cicadas have their own birdsong,
thick wwirress sstuckk in sspokess.
I have not considered bees for years and still would
rather not, except to say: I see only goldfinches here,
pinching the seeds from the Echinacea.
I miss your small poachings, your whir among
cackle and squawk. It’s a different cacophony.
Flossie Hedges is a writer, visual artist, and teacher living in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky. She holds MAs from University of Louisville and University of Pittsburgh, and she works at a small college that serves the Appalachian region. Her recent work has been published in EcoTheo Review and Fruitslice.