Lori cut the ties of hand-fasting
with a paring knife.
She just as easily cut the leather thongs
securing the hawk to its stand.
Lori walked across the spring pasture
that had not yet felt the year’s first mower blade.
She wished the night to lift her
as the sun-warmed thermals lifted the hawk.
Lori came in time to an abandoned house.
She stood on the porch.
Not quite inside the house in trespass.
Definitely not outside the house either.
Though moss grew on the timbers
she trusted the memory of inhabitants
to keep nature’s predators away.
Man-made predators abandoned this place.
She felt the aftermath of her actions
sitting in a sun-greyed creaking rocker.
Her breath formed a fog.
She spoke a true sentence without consequence.
The blunt end of her honest tongue
failed to cut the night’s chill air.
copyright © 2023 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 