I'm Thinking of a Few Spectacular Ways to Die
       

If it's not about something what is it about. The trees brush close to reply but suddenly it's fall and they drop everything. Now I can see through the forest to the far brown slope. Maybe I'll build a zip line. My father when he began aging talked more and more about the dangerous things he wanted to do—parasail, wingsuit, piano lessons. Modes of flight. I'd like to chat with him now but he's dead. We are closer than ever. And my favorite bird, the pileated woodpecker, has also disappeared. It's a bird with calls and drumming but no song. I miss his oversize body hanging upside down from the feeder, the jackhammer of his red-and-black head, stabbing at seed.

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Copyright © 2021 Jeffrey Skinner All rights reserved
from The Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission