Re-narrativization

by Taylor Byas

We all know what vultures do near the dying or already dead, their slow unfolding into umbrellas of dark. In the sky, a carouseled caution for the coming feast. So what does it mean when they follow me home? Yes, a funeral trucks me towards Chicago, a funeral already in my mind. But death isn’t on me yet. Or it is, and the birds belt a bracelet overhead because they know what I don’t. There’s extra vibration in my steering wheel, the thread in my tires worn down. But there is the bird’s language and then there is mine, different systems of symbols. I choose to rename this foreshadowing, call their vague choreography a halo. My mother calls and asks if I’m on the road. I tell her I will be home soon. I see the slit between sky and ground and claim another year of this life instead of heaven. I drive through it. The birds, so predictable, scatter at my declaration of permanence.