Why Items Tend to Shift in Flight

Sandra Meek

Aerie, a two-ton nest. Adolescent pines

snapped to kindle the crotch of a greater tree's looming
a fledgling iced

and powdered shore. Destination

is warren and hunt—the quivering kit, the river's silver
quickening; destiny the ginned field

unfurling bolt run to stop. The shadow

descending. Rising

to that forked holding: three gray hooks, all fuzz
and wide eyes and eager bobbing

necks craned toward a sky steeling
to Mother above them: that great beak,

all it brings down.