At sunset, heat goes out of the mountains in a hurry, rumors blow into the leaves and the fireflies—what there are left of them—rise up out past the gravel pile where the forest begins in a tangle of kudzu and brush and third-growth trees that make up the woods beyond where humans are scarce as a hiccup, in the trees, an interruption to the fox and possum, deer and raccoon, out south of town where a committee of vultures rests in hiding waiting to do the city’s clean up while in the courthouse the Council mumbles about ditching the kettle of scavengers with loud sounds or searchlights or poison, wiping out the wake of buzzards who keep streets clean of carrion. I don’t know what to think, but I’m sure I’ve never seen an alderman clean up a slaughtered critter.
Committee: vultures resting in trees; kettle: vultures in flight; wake: vultures feeding.
Committee: vultures resting in trees; kettle: vultures in flight; wake: vultures feeding.
