Ways of Getting Quail

by Ivy Grimes

In Exodus the quail were a gift from God
to supplement the bread,
and catching it was simple.
The birds rained down dead,
and everyone gathered them.

I do it differently.
The quail don't come to me.
I find them in the morning gathered.

When the shot strikes and the sky cymbals
and the bird is arrested mid-flight,
God knows how many feathers it has
and how many are lost in the grass and the trees
to remain, to be plucked by young girls
to fill their hair
with those feathers, becoming brown
and gold and red, and beautiful.

When plucked, the bird is pink and small
and we forgive each other.
When we eat, we can't look down
at the bird as a meal
but we look up, out the window
into the immediate sky and past, where we imagine
where the old quail once gathered
in a high quail cloud and think of
the places they dropped then, the patter,
and the gifts we receive
which are louder.

Ivy Grimes received her MFA from the University of Alabama. She has poems published and forthcoming in The Cimarron Review, Euphony, The Associative Press, Weave, WomenArts Quarterly Journal, and elsewhere.