Animal Grace by Gloria Heffernan. Number 28 in our Keystone Series, selected by Series Editors Karen J. Weyant and Jeff Walt.

[ cover image: Franz Marc, Deer in the Forest II, oil on canvas, 1914 ]

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Publication:  December 20, 2024 [100 copies]
25 pages
ISBN 978-1-960693-24-2
$ 12.00

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Gloria Heffernan‘s Exploring Poetry of Presence (Back Porch Productions) won the 2021 Central New York Book Award for Nonfiction. She also won the 2022 Naugatuck River Review‘s Narrative Poetry Prize. Gloria is the author of the poetry collections What the Gratitude List Said to the Bucket List (New York Quarterly Books) and Peregrinatio: Poems for Antarctica (Kelsay Books). Her work has appeared in over 100 journals and anthologies, including Poetry of Presence (vol. 2) and the forthcoming Without a Doubt: Poems Illuminating Faith (New York Quarterly Books). She teaches poetry at Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writers Center. To learn more, visit: www.gloriaheffernan.wordpress.com.

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Stain

As soon as I walked
into the sun-washed room,
I saw it.

The unmistakable smudge
against the glass,
residue of a life ended
on impact with the invisible.

One miniscule feather,
white and clinging to the glass,
confirmed what needed no
confirmation.

The end came quickly, no doubt.
A broken neck as the bird
crashed into the window.

No sign of it in the grass below,
seized efficiently by the feral cat
that lurks in the bushes.

Light filters through the white smear
where the small projectile
left the mark of its collision

like a bloodstain barely discernible
on the asphalt after an ambulance
races from an accident.

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