Читать книгу Compass and Clock - David Sanders - Страница 12

Dressing the Pheasant

After the knife hit the craw

of the bird gone stiff and cool

with ice and time in transit,

I removed the seeds, still whole,

from below the cocked head

and fingered them like beads,

one prayer apiece, as if grain

picked from the gullet of a bird

were of greater grace than if not,

in a hunter’s boot, let’s say,

shook out and left to grow,

or before the bird was shot,

if hours had passed and the seeds

had broken down and turned

into the spectrum of feathers

that rose out of its nest of weeds . . .

But when all the seeds that filled

that sack inside the bird—

the rest of the broken string—

slipped out and spilled,

I could not make them more

than they were:

undigested and wet on a paper

bought for the occasion, the chore.