Mourning Dove
Grayson Goga

Hollowed and honeycombed, the lattice of hesitation:
A season on its edge, like the world—overcome with
ragged insensitivity, cracked knuckles laced with green,
alcoholic moisturizer;                 it is Thursday morning, the
                                            Vernal Equinox.

I awake with a tickle in my throat, having dreamt
of dad’s magnanimous cement mixer gulped down by
thickets of lemongrass. A big, hot rain melts glass in our
palms—brown bark slicks back, runs a fever.

The dog hops cracks in tile, laps up well water, jokes
of losing faith, falling out of love, relieving oneself on time.
In minutes, we’ve made up, dressed the bed,
drunk a jar of coffee with sugar
                                            substitutes, trapped in a
                                            mechanized meditation.

Around eleven, a mourning dove hits the window,
shattering its spine. The thing’s skeleton weighs less than
a
tenth of its mass. Then we are reminded, in the echo,
of rural sighs like satellites, threatening oceans of space
                                            under strangers’ chins.

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