Still Life with Burn Barrel
       

Slow rain cascades inside the hollow eyes
a buck's skull upside down stares at the sky,
weeping in reverse—an antlered crown,
gnarled and ochre, my wandering nephews found
and placed atop a woodpile tarp beside
the barrel where we burn. Old receipts glide,
ember-pocked, curling dervishes in heat
that wilt and blaze their figures sheet by sheet.
Above, two wrens confused by smoke resolve
I mean them harm and flee. My boots absolve
a ceramic pot of its remaining shape.
Jagged ostraka, what sentences escape
your angry glow? Your script of roots writhes,
snakelings a widow torches in their hive.

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Copyright © 2019 Adam Tavel All rights reserved
from Third Coast
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission