What is the art that erases itself?
Maintenance, my dad might answer, reliably as
his Sunday crossword, his weekly workout.
Though like memory, his strength subsides. Stride out!
stride out! he reminds himself while walking
since he’s prone to falling, shockingly as a felled bird.
The owls still answer when he calls,
but does his memory of the refuge owl we saw
together survive? Winged by a hunter,
it had been chopped from the air,
its grisaille realm of memorized planes, tilts,
and improvised angles. Leashed to its perch,
the bird brooded absently as a knight
who’s outlived his conflicts. Its eye dropping on me
the predator’s cold, sulfurous fury, I’d felt
myself shudder—ghost fear of the quick and the small.
its grisaille realm of memorized planes, tilts,
and improvised angles. Leashed to its perch,
the bird brooded absently as a knight
who’s outlived his conflicts. Its eye dropping on me
the predator’s cold, sulfurous fury, I’d felt
myself shudder—ghost fear of the quick and the small.
