mangoes in disguise

today i am thinking about what we leave behind. in the store, on all of the bath mats, someone has drawn a heart or left a handprint. in the pen aisle, each page of the test paper is covered in names and little drawings and fuck covid and over and over again - hello hello hello hi hello. on the street i live, three houses have perfect hopscotch lanes carefully transcribed with rules and everything - jump here! now do a spin! graffiti of a deer on the side of a building, names scrawled into setting concrete. initials carved into park bench seats. In the bathroom, in silver sharpie - i hope you’re okay out there. i love you, you’re beautiful, keep trying. geocached tubes of trinkets, jackets left out in case somebody needs it. a note on my windshield - closed your door it was a little open have a great day and stay safe! my friends and i, fully grown adults, build a sandcastle on the edge of the ocean. 

The couple who owns the farm on the plateau (where my baby llama used to elope) lost a few cows recently, and since they think the guy who removes dead animals charges too much, they just dragged their dead cows to “a field that vultures know about” and mysteriously, the birds did arrive very soon. When I drove up this morning there were dozens of vultures around the cow carcasses, with their skinny necks and hunched shoulders, and I had no idea these birds were so huge. They reach up to my chest in height, and maybe 3 metres wide when they open their wings? terrifying giant death birds, and such a big flock, maybe 50 vultures feeding together around six dead cows in eerie silence.