WEBVTT

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This poem is about
fertility, and it

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appears in the new
Virginia Quarterly Review.

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"The Vulture and The Body."

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On my way to the
fertility clinic,

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I pass five dead animals, first
a raccoon with all four paws

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to the sky, like he's going
to catch whatever bullshit

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load falls on him next.

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Then a grown coyote,
his furred golden body

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soft against the white cement
lip of the traffic barrier,

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trickster no longer, an eye
closed to what's coming.

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Close to the sign
that says "Florence,

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y'all," and means
I'm near Cincinnati,

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but still in the Bluegrass
State and close to my exit,

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I see three dead deer, all
staggered, but together.

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And I realize as I speed
past in my death machine

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that they are a family.

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I say something to myself
that's in between a prayer

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and a curse.

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How dare we live on this Earth?

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I want to tell my
doctor about how we all

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hold the duality in our
minds, futures entirely

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different, footloose or forged.

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I want to tell him
how lately, it's

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enough to be reminded that
my body is not just my body,

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but that I'm made of
old stars, and so it he.

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And that last Tuesday,
I sat alone in the car

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by the post office and
just was for a whole hour,

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no one knowing how to find
me until I got out, the sound

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the car door shutting like
a gun, and mailed letters,

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all of them saying thank you.

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But in the clinic, the sonogram
wand showing my follicles,

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he asks if I have any
questions and says,

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things are getting exciting.

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I want to say, but what
about all the dead animals,

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the Earth, our trapped bodies?

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But he goes quicksilver, and
I'm left to pull my panties up

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like a big girl.

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Sometimes, there's a
violent sister inside of me,

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and a red ladder that
wants to go elsewhere.

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I drive home on the other side
of the road, going south now.

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The white coat has
said I'm ready,

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and I watch as a
vulture crosses over me,

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heading toward the
carcasses I haven't properly

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mourned or even forgiven.

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What if, instead of
carrying a child,

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I am supposed to carry grief.

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The great black scavenger
flies parallel now,

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each of us speeding intently
and driven toward what we've

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been taught to do with death.

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