What Rough Beast | Poem for February 28, 2020

Jared Pearce
The sky falls.

The cardinal in the first big
snow storm found two
inches of dry branch under
a form of canopy. Still,

as the flakes broke
on the leaves the ice would
biff and bite him, snap
onto the bone of his beak

and jag up his coat and do.
He twirled then cranked
his face, shuffled his clutch

until he gave up in search
of comfort, showing even
minor gods must suffer.

Jared Pearce is the author of The Annotated Murder of One (Aubade Publishing, 2018). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Coachella Review, Xavier Review, Breadcrumbs, BlazeVOX, and Panoplyzine, among other journals.  Online at jaredpearcepoetry.weebly.com.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.