Oversight by Monica Fuglei
What pulled it from the sky that day,
I do not know.
Canadian geese don’t just fall from flight
to land dead weight in parking lots.
In the midst of migration there is no explanation
for this moment: a stunned bird lands
graceless on the concrete before me,
her body whole, unmarred by bullets.
She lies among the cars, a parking lot nuisance--
a single wing spread north in springtime defiance,
No marks or blood. No explanation,
just a momentary loss of gravity and grace.
“This poem relates an experience I had in the early 2000s, when I came out from work to find a dead Canada goose on the ground by my car. People drove around it and seemed unphased by its presence and I was paralyzed by the image - the seeming uselessness of the moment, so I tried to work through it in a poem. The poem never felt finished, as I think I wanted the poem itself to provide me with explanation or a feeling of closure and, unfortunately, it never did.”
Monica Fuglei currently teaches in the Department of Composition, Creative Writing and Journalism at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, Colorado. A 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has recently appeared in Progenitor Magazine and Mason Street. When she’s not writing or teaching, she’s usually knitting or tweeting on #AcademicTwitter.