Death’s Constellation

by J. Francis Bowyer

Black omens rise like ashes
Of an ancient west where ancestral forms flew
Over Navajo, Creek, and Sioux.

Cluttering carrion expired
By bullet, rope, and blade
On dirt dyed by tears and blood.

Stygian marble eyes spy meat
From circling thermals down
Upon infernal frontier towns.

A clustered musk of feathers flock
Dust roads where bladed beaks
Tear old, cloth-wrapped skin.

Those feathered furies like Death
Spread across the sky as black stars
Orbiting this unrest.

A single specter leers
From a perch atop dead oak
Scorched and cored by God.

A silent judge
Sees turfed sin
And twisted earth.

Scents fresh death secreting
The soil of a settler’s land
Plucked and dry of living things.
​
An omen cast through time
To clear the dead
And judge us mortals for our crimes.

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J. Francis Bowyer was born and raised in England, but has lived in the United States since 2016. His writing often explores themes of isolation, intimacy, death, and rebirth, influenced by his time living between two countries. His poetry has been published in The Purposeful Mayonnaise and Opal Age Tribune. He currently lives and works in Texas.