Ecology

ERIN WILSON

I don’t want to suggest anything outside the image
as it presented itself and so I will try to keep quiet,
except to mention certain facts. It was more than twenty-below
with a harsh north wind, and it was only the beginning of winter.
I had walked out of town on country roads, trying to move beyond
my own personal debris, head down, eyes squinting,
leaking with the wind, until I was arrested.

The black alders, which aren’t black at all but a most
unassuming brown-grey, had pushed out bushels of the ripest
winterberries I’d ever seen, so dazzling against the banks
of snow, I was overcome.

Winterberry, winterberry, winterberry,
my eyes followed the burning bursts of colour
neither hot nor cold (which caused me to inexplicably ache)
left to right, and then rested upon the image in question.

Settled in the crux of a tree—
a pregnant burst of feathers, as brindled brown as
the branches themselves. This entity, let’s refer to it
as ground zero, plucked winterberry after winterberry
from the branches, and swallowed.
Had I not stopped due to the intensity of red
I’d never have noticed the grouse.
Instead, what appeared to be happening
was that the alder bushes,
which had sent forth their red sons and daughters,
were consuming themselves, disappearing their own fruits,
a complete circuit against a white screen.