Grouse

This water flows dark red from alder tannin: boot-stain river between white rocks. An ouzel, flannel-feathered, sips the current up. Mossgatherers spread their patches across a dry, flat turnaround. They seem embarrassed, want to shelter in the dark. A coyote running in broad day; stumps ruffling with sulphur polypores woodsy to the tongue, woody to teeth. Early yellow leaves paste river to its bed; blackberries drop, the last, many out of taste and strictly smudge. Puddles loop in the road: Bottomland— the foolhen waits there for the fool gun, gray throat-down free in a burst, the pose, the afterslump. Carcass beside spirit. O come to my hand, unkillable; whatever continues, continue to approach.