Poems from the 12-Hour Sonnet Contest: Wing loading, Frances Boyle

Frances Boyle is a noted Canadian poet and fiction writer. Her first novel comes out from The Porcupine's Quill next week. 

Wing loading

 A hawk’s spare journey, fencepost

to power line, wingspread remembering

all the places she’s been, the nest 

among poplars, the sway of the wind.

The distance she travels in an afternoon

broken by the amethyst sky, clouds

bruised and limping into place 

overhead, the gaps where the light 

shows brilliant in cracks. She hunches 

her head against the ruffling of feathers, 

the unsleeking of her plumage, barbs 

bent transverse to the grain by wind 

and wet. She hover-hops, rights 

herself. What home has she now?