11/15/23

I am mounted in pillory, neck and wrists hung low with fatigue and my gaze trained toward the dampened dirt at my feet. How many nights? A bold opossum took its honest pound of flesh out of my left calf sometime in the dark, leaving me a gift in return. I can feel the cavity seep with its ooze. My ears perk up at the flitter and flutter of wings. I strain my view upwards. What a view it had been when meeting its gaze lacked the agony. Imprisoned cliffside, I overlooked entire mountains and a glorious valley rich with fecund green. In dawning times like this I once often marveled at the sight of the purple horizon. Life resumes. I watch. One hole for the head. Two for the hands. And I catch sight of the black crow with zest in its beady eye, hopping back and forth in its avian dance — just for me.