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News That Stays News // Clinton Frakes

Executioner finches bob their heads in the wild rhubarb
& another great Italian poet collapses.
January’s rain-glossed stones devour the waning sun
in the high savannah fallows &
bloody yolks melt under the pinyon--
(the quail hen knows which eggs make good offspring).

Today was stillborn in El Nino’s mist,
morning glory & clematis shriveled to chicken wire--
Stellar’s Jay rattles his tail, flinging wet
sparks from its juniper perch.
This is a day for headlines & myths:

“50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz”
“5 billion set aside for new prisons”

A good day to read Ovid: the subduing of
Titans & fall of Thebes are always news.

A falcon carves up a cottontail
with curt slashes of his velvet head.