The boy in the black carriage listens.
Solo in flight the starlings have no message.
They fly. He listens. While he imagines
he might note an answer in the air, each bird,
wing on wing, will wing away from engines
that rev to pace the balers, which then growl
idle in the shade of the woods when sisters
and girls bring bread and lemonade. In his
young ear, the motors keep calling against
the sounds of wing and prayers of gratitude—
praise, to him, no more than a weak gauge
of the noise his brothers and cousins barely hear
as they court beside the oak stanchions of fall.
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C. Mikal Oness is the author of Oracle Bones, winner of the Lewis & Clark Poetry Prize, and Water Becomes Bone (New Issues Press). His book of tanka poems Notes from the Hermitage and a book of essays on printing A Private Matter are forthcoming this year from No Reply press. He lives on a cottage farm in Southeastern Minnesota with his wife, Elizabeth Oness. He is the founding editor of Sutton Hoo Press and The Last Press.
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Sasha Weiss is a PhD candidate at Indiana University. He has poetry chapbooks forthcoming from Ethel and Porkbelly Press this year.
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