by Olivia Jacobson
Heat, hot car making stillness—sunlight shooting
through the bullet holes in the roof
of this Toyota. Not a breeze, not a breath.
I climb through the cars in the hour before dark.
A world beginning to fog. I come out from the steel
where my skin sat speckled with sweat
in the iron light.
But now the sky is draining the brightness
behind the chain link fence—shadows
of Virginia creeper in the coils—
Downtown, geometric shapes
in the distance.
Starlings: liquid in their heavy swarm—thousands together—
impossible mass.
They swirl, diving as one,
with inkblot wings & apricot beaks,
thrumming waves of feathers thrashing
over feathers over feathers.
I jump up at them, but the birds dodge
my arms.
Slowly, black gulps the light
& then the stars burst through—
not white, but opal and oyster.
The Big Dipper & it’s little companion,
& the moon hanging—
big yellow oil pan distended.
I hear the compactor crush from behind,
the spray of windshield glass clicks
against the gravel.
I run
from the sky, gliding through the rows, run sailing
my fingertips against the still warm
metal doors, run sling-shotting antennas,
to the edge of the fence
& scare the birds that rush from the field,
now like bats, now like glimpses
flickering in the corn,
their collective fright in reiterations
of three quick chirps— a thousand tiny slices
to split open the quiet.
The summer stalks ripple
as the starlings shoot from their leaves.
My fingertips loop through
the chain-link, scuffed knuckles clinging
to the fence, my face pressed
against the cold metal web
& I watch their outlines begin to fade