Gabriella Brand

Switched-on-Gutenberg published The Wild Turkey Gang in issue 19.

Read it below or check it out here:

www.switched-ongutenberg.org/archive/issue19/brand.htm

The Wild Turkey Gang

There are nine or ten of them, with their

mottled feathers slicked back, sullen and shifty-eyed,

loitering on the planted patch near the highway tunnel,

watching the cars go by like a bunch of

teenagers with nothing to do.

Now and then, one of them pecks the grass

and sways slightly, as if he’s stoned and mellow.

The leader, gobbling orders,

bobs his neck in time to a hidden rhythm,

like heavy metal drifting up from the

roadway, clanging raucous into tiny turkey ear buds.

Motorists gape, but the birds stand with practiced

indifference. They only care about gang rules

and working on their strut.