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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “6 Feet Under” Down in the Dirt (v136) (the May 2016 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book A Stormy Beginning the Down in the Dirt Jan. - June 2016 collection book		get the 318 page Jan. - June 2016 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Feathers

Al Ortolani

A mockingbird sat on the topmost branch of a pear.
He had a worm dangling like a horseshoe from his beak.
I stood on the school lawn until he flew, waiting

to register the trademark bars on his wings. Anyone
from the classrooms would have guessed
that baffled by indecision I was lost to dementia, rather

than to an elementary search for truth.
Moments later, I’m almost run down on the highway
by a minivan with Crawford County plates. A friend is driving,
wearing a rain hat from our last canoe trip two years ago.

That night he posts on Facebook from the ballgame.
Cleveland is losing to Kansas City in the bottom of the sixth.
He’s wearing the same hat that he almost killed me in.

He knows nothing of our narrow escape.

When I step out onto the porch, a V of wild geese
honk southward away from the coming winter.
The clouds reflect the lights of 87th Street.

I have stored boxes of journals, poems, rough drafts
of bad novels. I keep them for a rainy afternoon
with my grandchildren. It’s time for them

to find arrowheads, purple thistles, owl feathers.

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