Through feral verses

Sirensummer

Sirens howl hurt and carry up from the flatland
into creekdens where they find company in sleeping
coyotes who awaken to answer in hurt back.

This happens every time someone hits a pole,
starts a lint fire, falls off a ladder, crashes a motor
scooter into a pedestrian, shears off a hydrant.

They’ve been up all night hunting vole and rabbit,
quail and kingsnake, anything else so given to use
faint starlight as a guide through shared hunger.

Sirens stop, but the hurt continues until it swells
into silence, the song of it sung together, from bitter
beginning, through feral verses, to unsettled end.

Joseph Gallo
July 21, 2014