Hawk Mountain

by Conner Habib

Prophecy AFTER SANDOR CSOORI the last winter will arrive with the sound of bells and wheels covering cobblestones horses too will neigh and whinny from their tar-black nostrils eternity will pour its lullaby men and women will declaim of their innocence and sink into the shadows children will take to the streets fire will arrive light the lakes and water no god will condemn no god will forgive but people will burn all day and all night and there will be no resurrection —PAUL PERRY

Before Todd sees Jack for the first time, his eyes are closed. He’s in class.

First lines

No one will read that book again because that is the nature of most books: read once, if at all, then shelved with the words locked inside.

A tick has found its way into Anthony’s flesh, inside his ear. It snuggles itself into the curve, where the blood is thin and scarce; it will have to wait awhile to be fed, and so it won’t become fat and found and killed. It will take what it wants and fall away. Slowly, it will drink Anthony’s warm blood, through a nick it makes with its mouth. It’s a good home for this little thing, which lives on the life of the living.

Anthony is watched by the hawk and eaten by the tick, and tiny mites live in his eyebrows and lashes, and his father is holding a corpse now, in a cave in the ground beneath him. When Jack is in the container, his knees bent, his head to the side, Todd stands and looks at him. This is the quietest peace he has ever seen. The moment when he looks upon Jack, and Jack’s face does not stir. and there will be no resurrection is the last line of the poem, which through all of this has sat in the book pressed shut on the shelf. It might be true, about the resurrection. No sunlight will reach the eyes of the dead to wake them. Then again, what does a poem know?

then he steps one foot into the bin and stands it on Jack’s right shin to brace it. And he bends over and holds Jack’s right foot and then at the same time brings his own foot down on the bone and pulls upward, again and again until there is a small squealing sound of tiny fracture. The birth of a jagged crack inside for the teeth of the waiting saw.

Jack leans forward and kisses Todd. Their lips are warm in the cold air. Todd gives in and they find each other. He can taste Jack and feel Jack’s breath going into him. And when he pulls back, their foreheads are still touching. He puts his hand on Jack’s face. “Why?” he says again. He’s still crying. Jack looks into him with his sea-glass eyes. Todd can feel him then, inhabiting him, like that first day in class. But it’s different now; it understands itself. Jack reaches up softly and Todd flinches, but then calms as Jack wipes his tears from his cheeks. “Todd, I . . .” But Mr. Appel’s voice ricochets down the mountain to them. “Todd! Jack! Are you down there? Jack! Todd!” There’s a breath, and a heartbeat. I love you, he wants to say. But then Jack turns and goes up the mountain to join the rest of them. The words don’t come. And they never will.

Last paragraphs