<\/p>\n
See again a shag or gull or whatever finding solace under wing\u2014 and zee their necks as and then\u2014when birdseed Once I tossed grey ready, and waited the trap in pairs, scattered, headlong under To feel her standing on our backs and snarl before the snap and shut of teeth, got his forehead bitten off, a piece of curled skin Our driver stopped. We knelt down A camera flashed. We felt her pass Among the Weka Stevensons Island, New Zealand See again the way the birds moved in, their ducking under Mother\u2014 seeking cover from a shag or gull or whatever it was that cast its shadow onto landscape, the fledging rails finding solace under wing\u2014 a rotting weasel carcass between them and me. Yet how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8422,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8422"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1297,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1295\/revisions\/1297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nStevensons Island, New Zealand<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthe way the birds moved in,
\ntheir ducking under Mother\u2014
\nseeking cover from<\/p>\n
\nit was that cast its
\nshadow onto landscape,
\nthe fledging rails<\/p>\n
\na rotting weasel carcass
\nbetween them and me.
\nYet how they’d coo<\/p>\n
\nsoon as feeding moment
\ncame, myself at first
\nintruder on the scene<\/p>\n
\nflew the air\u2014how they’d
\nweave through tussock
\ngrass near dock’s landing.<\/p>\n
\npellets by the handful
\non the outcrop,
\ncocked my snare to<\/p>\n
\nfor the foraging chicks
\nto tiptoe onto wire.
\nWhen they approached<\/p>\n
\nMother’s screech ricocheted
\nlike a ring around
\nthe island and they<\/p>\n
\nfern and feather canopy\u2014
\nsafe at least until
\nthe rats came around.
\n <\/p>\nThe Feed<\/h2>\n
\nwas dreadful: the way she dug her claws
\nin when she jumped, a high-pitched scream<\/p>\n
\na chunk of dangling meat above our necks.
\nThe week before our trip, a Spanish tourist<\/p>\n
\nbeneath the Rover’s shining headlights,
\nthe blood-spotted hyena running off. . .<\/p>\n
\nto the ground. The scent of cattle carcass
\nbrought her eyes out of the darkness.<\/p>\n
\nbetween us. I saw the dirt rise
\nwhen she turned around.
\n <\/p>\nJason Barry’s poetry has appeared in The Cortland Review, The Raintown Review, Angle<\/em> (UK), Noble\/Gas Quarterly, The Citron Review<\/em>, and other journals. He has worked as a lecturer in English at universities in China, South Korea, and Mexico, and is a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow in the MFA program for writers at Boston University.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"