As the Crow Flies

Home is 364 miles away
as the crow flies except
the crow has a broken
wing and bird flu and
there’s a missile defense
system called Time that
prevents any homebound
flights from approaching
the air space they so
desperately miss and
now the crow is falling
and still the crow is falling
and now the crow is dead.

Convergence Zone

My friend told me there’s a convergence zone
between Everett and Seattle. We owned a little
run-down sailboat together, twenty-two feet of
scuffed fiberglass, mildewed cushions, and duct tape
decaying in Lake Union. Then we sold it. Our friendship
miraculously survived. I call him now, buried under
sixteen inches of snow in the rust belt,
under the cold accumulation of ten more years.

He’s doing well. A young girlfriend. A midlife crisis
convertible Mustang. We catch up, talking serial
killers, addiction, horsepower, abuse, His Motorbike,
Her Island, layoffs, retina disease, a backpacking trip
long ago to the White Mountains of New Hampshire,
the quartz in the granite dust glittering in our
sleeping bags, the peaks named for dead presidents.

He lived in Everett. I lived in Seattle. Between us lay
and lie memories, moments, invisible connections
which bind us even if we’re half-blind to them.
Even if time and our own clumsiness tries to
sever them. I never knew where exactly this zone
began or ended, its causes or effects, but I remember
the gray enveloping fog felt like a friend.

Suet

Hoof prints in the snow tell a little tale.
The overpopulation of local deer.
A sign across the street warns
city residents. An urban archery
program. Bows taut in local parks.
Predators in white camo skulk
along highways. Litter trapped in
bare branches trembles as false prey.

My girlfriend buys blocks of suet to feed
the birds. She hangs them from a metal pole
staked in the front yard. I watch the
suet sway in its tiny cage. Nuthatches,
cardinals, a blue jay. Claws and beaks.
The suet gradually disappears. The birds
must eat to survive January in the rust belt.
We’re trying to survive something too.

The sun rises. The pole casts a muddy shadow
across the snow. Seeds speckle the ice.
Metal clangs against metal in the winter
wind. Something clangs in my chest.
Hunts us, haunts us. It’s cold and we’re hungry.  



Kent Kosack is a writer based in Pittsburgh. He has recent work in minor literature[s], the Heavy Feather Review, 3:AM Magazine, Some Words, and elsewhere. His chapbook of small essays, Prose Scraps, will be published Fall 2026 by Map Literary.

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