Cut the Devil’s Throat
Because the
truth: heaven’s wings, it is wings
I mean to say, or no, not wings,
but their fragility, their paused
buoyancy,
the hollow of their bonds crucial
to their gain of flight.
Hear the covey taking off, stunned
by some foot or finger in the bush,
flushed (first stalked) by dogs and
men
with guns, their rubber boots a suck
in the mud.
This flight of
fear blots the sun from the whole
sky…what’s now, floating down
is a glow of marble rain for all the
shit
that falls on the visor of anyone
not looking up.
And any who do
fire into the sky of feather
cloud…thip, thip the bird shot but only
fowl hear that and not so much hear
as suck it in like a flat rock
thrown high
over the water
so that it’s
entry barely calls out. Cut
the devil’s throat. That’s what they called
it.
Can you cut the devil’s throat?
I’m not so good at skipping rocks,
but I can
throw high
enough so that coming back is fast
and barely a splash. I always look for stones
that might, being flat, and round,
take out
the sun in just one throw. Not ducks
the way dad would.
I want them,
beyond any stone or shot, to float
in the Irish moss and kelp, I want
to imagine their paddling feet. Come
winter, their sea will shrink. It’s harder
to get away. Jesus,
they say,
walked on such water. Is it possible
to know if he could float on it too?
Oblivious to boots and dogs and
guns?
I wonder, if he were flushed, could
he
push himself
up fast enough
to gain the sky the way we’re
all promised? Or would he fall too, back
into it all, feather and bone pulled
into the breast, descending into the
back-
slap,
my father and brother on the ground.
Well done, son, well done.
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