Nighthawks
House on a hill, Edward Hopper sky:
the nighthawks circle the roof ridge,
cryptic plumes mottled gray and black
like ash bark. A white flash blazes
as their wings rise and dip
in the dim half-light between night
and morning. Everything in this house
grieves. Ghostly shadows peer out
windows as if trying to leave
the mourning that hovers in the air
thick as gravestone moss.
Outside, the hawks, now erratic,
look like bats as their sharp, electric
peent buzzes, halted only by a boom
when one and then another and then another
circles high above the eaves and then dives
steeply, hurtling toward the earth,
a sullen plunge saved only by a graceful,
long-winged looping that pitches
back up to the heavens. The unrelenting
hum of buzz, boom, swish cloaks
the rooftop like a shroud,
pounds against the rafters and lintels,
then stops suddenly. The front-porch door
swings into the silence, and we watch them
carry your shrouded body to the open
wings of the hearse. The hawks roost
motionless along the maple branch,
now almost invisible in their perch,
and watch, too, as the car descends
the gravel drive, drifting into daybreak
until vanished. With a swoosh, the birds
take flight, head toward the river,
where they will swoop low, skim
a drink from the surface, wetting
their feathers in a baptismal spray
that settles into their rictal bristles
and evaporates as the flock disperses.
Nightjar, goatsucker, chuck-will’s-widow,
each bird now a lone shadow in the sky.
Like us, they have no nest to fly home to,
only a shallow depression in the dirt,
shaded by stone.
Tory Pearman resides with her family in Cincinnati, OH, where she teaches literature and writing. Her work appears or is forthcoming in journals like Moss Puppy, Cheat River Review, Salamander, Atticus Review, and San Pedro River Review. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.