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East St. Louis Noir #58.

"Here was fine, there was a disaster. But here was just a different kind of disaster." --Hummingbird Salamander

The Plum Pudding in Danger.

"Fox

Down the draw toward the water
where the duck have flocked,
the stones stink with riots
of fox sign. The tortured mesquite
urge us to the wigeon, pintail,
blue-winged teal tuning their whistles.
At our rising from the last rock
they leap like rain returning. We shoulder
guns, begin to brush them from
the egg shell dusk: cave dwellers
whitewashing the walls of our hides.
A teal’s crescent cheek shines
in the game bag’s shadow. Back up
the brittle course four lengths of shot
, we settle at the scrub oak’s feet.
Dimpled walnut strokes the cracked
tip of my thumb. The dead rabbit’s record
screams into a cedar copse
beyond stones like steps into the night,
and that hideous, carnal bark comes
to say how far from home we are."

--Danny Fitzpatrick in Forgotten Ground Regained #5

Winter.