dawn saws through      a scrapyard           where a lanky man sits

legs akimbo         hemmed in by two-limbed stools       & helices

of cedar    stonewashed jeans  saddled in shavings   scalp leashed

by dust      ants chafe his ankles         as the mosquito coil    clots  

with sawdust            a transistor radio         buzzes     on its back    

bent antenna broadcasting        the chaos              of static & ash   

he is mining the wood       hatching lines     slivers      drip   with

every scritch-scritch          of the chisel              each scratch       as

thin     as a stitch     he threshes     a tremor of feathers    & shirrs 

the fleecy chest        gouges the lithe hollow             of the throat

scissors away a beak     & smooths it      with a rasp    & its torso

ebbs     into pedestalled  claws     they roost in pairs        corseted

in scores     he fishes another    wooden block      from the singed

underbrush     spent firewood           his hands      shudder    with

the held lament           of decades of work               when he rises

feet disheveling dirt              spine limp              as a marionette’s            

his shadow drops          into the deadfall              a     tree   holds        

the      balding moon       in its burnt        fingers                 as he

disappears                     a plume           of smoke