A POEM by JARED POVANDA

Cold Bodies

There is a body in the snow. The body is not mine.

Divested of its feathers, how long can any bird live plucked clean?

Someone was shot here, right here, and here I am questioning birds.

My priorities have always been skewed.

The body’s torso is scrawny, like mine, and its neck is bent all weird.

Weird like a coat hanger pushing a new orb of metal from its neck or

meat lifting from a flower’s center. Adam’s apple crushed.

The police are here, but their red woo-woo lights aren’t flashing.

(A jaguar eats a meatball from the flower’s head.

The process is indelicate. Saliva gets everywhere.)

Burly policemen cover the body with a tarp for transport

as if he were a human cord of wood being delivered to

an eagle dying from exposure. Beak open for pinkie fingers.

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Jared Povanda is a writer and freelance editor from upstate New York. He has been published in places like Hobart, and he has been nominated for distinctions like Best of the Net and Best Microfiction. Find him on social media @JaredPovanda and jaredpovandawriting.wordpress.com.