Even though the wrecked jeep
belonged to Pat, it felt like stealing to go through
chain link into the scrap yard, jack up
each corner and switch out his new tires
with our bald ones. It was twelve below.
The snow squeaked underfoot
like Styrofoam. We were trying to make it in a place
where everything we thought we needed
—sheetrock, tomatoes, polypro—
had to be shipped in from Outside.
There was a raven calling, watery cluck
echoing the lot. There was us cursing
the lug nuts, then another sound,
out of place, high and keen
and you and I startle like any goddamn bird.
I see your head tilt, ear
to sky, and while Anne is jumping
blood back into her toes and Pat is wrestling
with the left rear, there is within this scene another:
A peregrine calls and we both look up, catch each other doing it,
then laugh. Because it’s not likely a falcon here,
February in central Alaska. The call sounds again,
and a few pigeons startle, birds that arrived with
the wires and poles. And that’s why we hear it,
set on some timer to cry away
those pushy opportunists
at the foothills of the Chugach,
throats cold in the day’s short light.