A fallow wheat field
Grey sky, cut by black V's of black birds
There is a child dragging a hatchet
His eyes cast down
His eyes tight
His eyes white and red and superfluous.
He knows not what he sees
But he knows what is there

A single black winged beast,
Beak cracked, feathers rotting,
Alights roughly on the child's shoulder.
They stop.
The bird picks at the cartilage of the boys ear as if bitting secrets into it.
The boy groans
Not unpleasantly

Heavy slow clouds roll and rise,
Starkly contrasted against the flickering hills,
Which stoically keep the poisonous rains at bay

A sudden little river,
Partially walled by palsied shafts of grain,
Rolls by
The boy walks into it
He bends forward
His blank eyes stare into his reflection
Neither he nor his mirror knows the other is there,
but the bird
The bird knows
The bird cackles
Or perhaps cries
Even the bird is uncertain

The boy takes a palm full of the dark water
Most of it runs out through his long zigzagging fingers
He licks the remainder from his dusty skin

A sound
Like thunder
Like drums
Like steps
The boy turns and hurls his hatchet behind him
The bird flies up and away
There is a hideous thump
The boy knows not what he has hit
But that it has been wounded
He waits for its retort