Magnetic filings,
birds convene
on wires

slung between the light
poles. The whole street: 
crows’

feet, marionette
lines
across 

5 pm’s
gold 
sky.

Collectively electrified,
bodies bolt +
attenuate —

Firecracker-ing
the air above the filling
station —

a 
mini-
murmuration, gilt-winged, teal,

not
to 
be

seen,
yet
seen:

heart-
lifting
gratuity.

Afterlife (75 Toward Cincinnati)

There are like 15 lanes where all roads come together 

And what bad luck for that young deer

A buck who came half-flying down the hillside 

That it landed here at Kentucky’s busy northern edge 

When nearly every car was rushing to the river 

Now as we cross the bridge we too move 

from one state to another

Sarah B. Cahalan writes about natural history, hope/grief/faith, the layers of places and how those correspond with our own layers as people moving through time and place. She has poems, current or forthcoming, in Dark Mountain, Image, Trampoline, and others. Sarah is from Massachusetts and lives in Ohio.