Annette Sisson

Death is not

the hoot owl, stiff in quiet grass
the tomcat vanished outside the sliding glass
              a father, spine compressed, coffin six inches too long
the doe plucked away by a coven of vultures
                                    children, their years spooled tight, wasted
the wood roach murdered with impunity
            snakes, no more skins to shed
a mother, casket draped with the comforter she stitched
                        even buzzards

Where do they go?

            bodies
                                   residue
                        merge
            with soil
                                    molecules
                        break
            into earthworm
                                    grass
                                                tree           

What of their glistening threads?
The heave of their leaving?

No wisp of fur
            in its curved beak—
                        death is not
            a barred owl
                        on the forest floor
                                    still
                        beside a shagbark

Annette Sisson’s poems can be found in Birmingham Poetry Review, Nashville Review, Typishly, One, The West Review, HeartWood Literary Magazine, Sky Island Journal, and others. Her first full-length book, Small Fish in High Branches, is forthcoming from Glass Lyre Press (2022). She was named a Mark Strand Poetry Scholar for the 2021 Sewanee Writers’ Conference, a 2020 BOAAT Writing Fellow, and winner of The Porch Writers’ Collective’s 2019 Poetry Prize. Visit her website: http://annettesisson.com