James Silas Rogers

Over mullein stalks and red cedar
that clutched the limestone slope,

a cast of buzzards came dealing
themselves into our day. They poured

across the bluff tops, wheeling
like a skater's silent blades on ice.

Sometimes the ground falls away
and a single thing—a toothache,

a flat tire, a sudden love—
displaces the rest of the world.

Eight scrawny silhouettes left
us wordless, filled the sky.