The Double-Bed Dream Gallows

written by


« Reload image

Driving through 
hot brushy country
the late autumn, 
I saw a hawk
crucified on a
barbed-wire fence.

I guess as a kind 
of advertisement 
to other hawks, 
saying from the pages
of a leading women’s 
 magazine,

“She’s beautiful,
but burn all the maps 
to your body.
I’m not here
of my own choosing.”

© Jack Gilbert