Prognosis

Small birds teeter
on the wires by the feedstore.

Crows scatter broken seedpods
beneath the streetlight.

Flowering weeds crowd the dusty sidewalk,
sickly yellow or red as blood.

Lemons fall from the tree
for leaf mold and lack of water.

A rattlesnake slithers into the chaparral,
scales bulging with rat.

The MRI coaxes unexpected images
from harmless shadow.

The full moon moves from worm
to wolf.