ISSUE III
Natalie Eleanor Patterson
INTERLUDE
I live a passenger
in a time of omens
Turkey vulture bald
eagle barrel-brown falcon
tearing a fresh line of darkness
in the star-slid sky
First the feather then
the blood like lace edging
the farmer’s field
Dead deer gutted by carrion
rot thunderhead bright
slash in the jagged highway
Hand in my mouth like a bite block
I live a smattering
of stars in the torn-up map
Sudden rain sudden light-
headedness my bruised chest
not a symptom but a sign:
Above
a gasp of red-
tailed hawks the steady
circling the angling
down
Natalie Eleanor Patterson is a poet, editor, and instructor from Atlanta, Georgia with a BA from Salem College. She is the author of the chapbook Plainhollow (dancing girl press, 2022) and the editor of Dream of the River (Jacar Press, 2021), and has work featured or forthcoming in Sinister Wisdom, Hunger Mountain, CALYX, and elsewhere. She received awards in poetry from Salem College as well as Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations. She is Managing Editor of Jacar Press, an editor for One magazine, and a reader for the Julie Suk Award. She is an MFA candidate in poetry at Oregon State University, where she serves as poetry editor of 45th Parallel and teaches creative writing.