My Only Deftness
       

You say that if you field-dress the turkey, steam rises
from the viscera: just minutes ago, this body

was alive. When you open up the crop and gizzard,
you can tell where the bird's been: pine needles

or duckweed. I wonder if there are feathers everywhere
as you tell the about removing the head, the wings,

the feet and spurs. But first, you say, you must
make sure it's dead, so I imagine with you:

you stand on its neck. The bird is calm
until right before death, when it flaps and writhes

and then is still. I can't feel
the triumph of arriving home with dinner

which you describe. I haven't seen the fields
that sprawl below your family's home. "If I

were a poet;' you say, "I'd be able to say
something about how they look in the morning."

Here, in the limit of words,
an exchange: yourself, a sort of portrait.

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Copyright © 2012 Lisa Ampleman All rights reserved
from I’ve Been Collecting This to Tell You
The Kent State University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission