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Summer 2008
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Lucas
Stangl
claims although waffle cut fires are his favorite, there are times when he will
tolerate a batch of curly fries.
This cuisine-suffering is what inspires him to write.
Some of his work has or will appear in The
Peralta Press,
Poetry
Motel, Coe Review, The Adirondack Review,
Poems
Niederngasse Online,
The
Fifth Column, The Drexel Online Journal
and McSweeney’s
Online.
Lucas Stangl
Thoughts Inspired
by Hawks
Two red-tails
perched on highway lampposts
watch the rising sun and ground
under construction.
For centuries these raptors
have spied the earth on the wing and
in the trees.
Only in the last one hundred years
did they acquire this steel vantage point.
Are the lampposts a shitty deal
signed in a smoky room between
the hunters’ union and the hawks’ lawyer?
A contract that states, “We accept
your right
to the air and vermin; and you
respect our right to fast cars and
concrete roads in need of lampposts.
You will
no longer be our targets if you
cease
to target our cattle, babies, and puffy dogs.
This contract is legally binding for
three hundred years
or until one species buys the
farm.”
I drive by two hawks and wonder about this treaty.
I hope after three centuries,
humans sign the mortgage
papers—not hawks.