Cheryl Stiles
Save Oneafter Rafael Alberti’s “The Surviving Angel”
On Highway 41, seven miles west
of Marietta, a red-tailed hawk
lies on asphalt—broken-necked,
eyes hollow, some feathers
plaited to the double yellow,
one bloodied wing upturned
as if to fly into its next
incarnation, bones transmogrified
into a map. Its mate watching
from the roadside, wounded
but alive, wing-clipped.