EMILY HARMAN
Reckoning
Nothing is where it should be.
The water is still. This is how it happened.
The bloated eagle bobs facedown in the deep.
What is left of the loonlet is talon torn, wet and inside out.
In the weeds I used to wade through, the bulrush is breaking
open again. Somewhere the loon preens her matted feathers.
Cleans her bloody beak. Cries empty nest elegy across the lake.
Even now I am haunted by the part of me that is my father.
The part that mistakes predator for prey. Mistakes echo
for ending. There is no such thing as a quick death.
Look, even now. The shame has birthed maggots.
Look how they feed on what lives.
Emily Harman is a Minnesotan poet and writer living in Seattle, Washington. She is at work on her first collection of poems.