For two months on S. Providence,
I watch a pair of geese live in front of
liquor store lawn. They travel in pairs. I follow
them on the lake-face behind the shop,
watch them squawk love. At curbs, they huddle
together, sleeping. I am happy for them.
One morning, I see the girl-goose alone.
She is sitting, waiting for her partner to return
bringing Missouri flora in his mouth; coneflower,
daisies, aster.
I have never seen her by herself.
One morning, when jogging, I see the girl-
goose again. I go up to her; she is burrowed in grass,
blank-eyed. I turn around and see her mate,
the other one I’ve followed.
He is down the hill, flipped over,
dead, next to a fast-laned road.
Grey trucks speed past. His legs are in the air.
The girl-goose looks forward.
She already knew about him; now
she doesn’t know how to move on.
Oh, why be so Icarus, man-goose?
What does your partner do with the rest of her life?
This is her first new day.
Jennifer Maritza McCauley is the author of Scar On/Scar Off, a hybrid collection; When Trying to Return Home, a short story collection; Kinds of Grace, a poetry collection; and Neon Steel, a speculative fiction collection (2026). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Kimbilio, and CantoMundo, and her work has been a New York Times Editors’ Choice, Best Fiction Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and a Must-Read by Elle, PopSugar, Bookshop, Today, and other outlets. She has been published recently in Boston Review, Columbia Journal, Vassar Review, Acentos Review, Zone 3, Obsidian, and The BreakBeat Poets: Latinext (Haymarket Books). She is fiction editor at Pleiades and an assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Image: “Ashes to Ashes, Duck to Duck” by Alex J. Tunney
Pine Hills Review 