Suzette Bishop

Ok, I Get It

Mourning dove
scattered around the carport,
blood caking down feathers
near bone,
a wing so light,
a pile of feathers in one corner
to sweep up.

I replace the horseshoe
hanging from a nail
flung into the grass,
probably the most intense moment
of the kill.

My mother and brother-in-law
are both in the hospital in distant cities. The scene in the carport
tells me one or both won’t be getting out,
it tells me about wings flapping desperately,
mouth clamped down hard on body,
it tells me about not coming home,
Dave’s heart stopping a week later
for a full minute
before they got it re-started.

Ms. Winters at hospice
tells me over the phone about dying comfortably,
and how they don’t hasten anything.
The irony is, mom,
you taught me to love cats,
those stalkers, pouncers, predators,
torturers, unapologetic about prolonged agony.

I get it,
luck struck down and wings,
mourning, winter, gray unknowns,
something passing through,
banging against concrete walls
and then on to somewhere else,
in some other form.

I get it, prepare to be left
like the dove
looking for her lost one,
swooping in to attack the killer,
long gone.