by Samantha Grenrock

A drone flies twelve hours a day,
reading the Earth like thought.

In the blue light that cancels sleep,
I quilt the image back together,

count the tens of thousands
that have flown the crawfish farms of Louisiana

to settle in this river of grass,
still blush with carotenoids.

When asked, how do you want to return,
say a collection of wings beating each

at a different rate, that lower bodies
into water the same temperature

as air, strange to step through, like a mirror.
It's not clear when this will ever happen again,

when the cypress will bow with courtship,
and the recently paired will cross necks,

getting to know one another. A lunge and a grasp.
He shakes her by the head to show her.

I, too, like it when the male possesses strength
enough to hurt me.

A way of saying, you are safer
with me. They take turns on the nest.

Some nights I see splayed stacks of bony sticks
in the light-gassed lot, in the plastic bag

in the arms of a windbreak—cypress, too.
I see nests in kitchen cupboards,

a pale egg duo in the bowl. The stronger offspring
will push out a third. An appeasement.

Hence the phrase rain of chicks. A whole life
a moment alone in the water.

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Samantha Grenrock grew up in California and now lives in Florida. Her work has appeared in Mississippi Review, Denver Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, Best New Poets, and others.