It might be a skirt girls wear
for Beltane or another pastoral
occasion, in Eastern Europe
perhaps. You might see them
whirling in a painting by
one of the Generalic brothers,
maybe, “Spring Festival at
Hlebine,” floralia we couldn’t
name gracing the air about
their ankles. That morning
a mother probably announced,
“Today you can wear your
Mayhems to the dancing.”
But this afternoon a redtail
flashed across my windshield
and landed, wings spread,
in the roadside grass, then
rose into the left lane
and flapped for five seconds
parallel to my car
before turning for the trees,
a limp attitude of surrender
dangling from its hook,
a spinal cord already snipped.
Behind glass it was as soundless
as a pantomime, but the mayhem
had already begun.
Brendan Galvin is the author of sixteen collections of poems. Habitat: New and Selected Poems 1965-2005 was a finalist for the National Book Award. The Air’s Accomplices, a collection of new poems, is forthcoming from LSU Press. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEA fellowships, the Iowa Poetry Prize, and Poetry’s Levinson Prize, among others. He lives in Truro, Massachusetts.
[Purchase your copy of Issue 06 here]
