nestbox snack
to turn, a small
beige globe between teeth,
jaw, open
for a door
bull, my dear,
snake—guest of
honor, coil
of body for a shell
egg crunch implosion inside
your intestines, O
may we all be so
serene and widemouthed
in the ecstasy of consumption.
Some, Burrowing Owl
tap tip do you hear the underground trickle sand shift tap tip the water seep deep tap tip do burrows inhale sand hold your gentle ceiling constructed from damp grains tap tip the prairie dogs tilt heads rustle up from their houses tap tip their town chatters behind your quick tap tip steps there flits an insect for breakfast a centipede tap tip all the little legs down your gullet tap tip the sun pulls a golden curtain between shrubs tap tip bunched threadleaf groundsel brushes off a bursting blush of yellow pollen tap tip a grasshopper’s leg clangs against your beak tap tip it might almost be late enough for a nap tap tip the power line whistles a wind flute tap tip dart beneath the barbed wire fence tap tip where did the pecan catkins blow this year tap tip a windmill still spins tap tip prairie dogs blink bright ilvaite eyes at your tap tip return tap tip you will hunt again soon tap tip did you make it home—
when i consumed i
didn’t overhear a morning dove carol
twilight or glissade an east wind out
of a hill pocket or nip chalky juniper berries
halfway to purple. i didn’t see juice dribble down
a double ringed throat or the silver
lace vine envelope a sleepy bull snake. i was
waiting for the bird to sing an ocean back
to the valley. i was devouring comets flung
through the atmosphere. i was relishing the hot
orbs sliding down the channel of my throat &
drawing sea creatures in the sticky rivers babbling
from the corners of my mouth. maybe
that is why the dove did not choreograph an ocean—
i ate every raindrop, imploded every breeze.
Tovah Strong grew up watching ravens in New Mexico. She is the 2021 recipient of the Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Prize, and an MFA candidate at Randolph College. Her poetry has appeared in Institute of American Indian Art’s student anthologies, the Santa Fe Literary Review, and *Isacoustic, and is forthcoming in The Ana.
Header photo by Danita Delimont, courtesy Shutterstock.
