Natalie Padilla Young

That Is Always. This Is Endless.

3.8 million crows dynamited during 11-year Oklahoma campaign, 1934–1945

In Utah, a two-day campaign
sees the toilet seat covered in visible particles. Yesterday’s
feather duster tapped carelessly
over garbage can and porcelain bowl. The dog is interested

in cleansers. Icky, I say
every time. Still he’s curious, still he sniffs
too close to the gel that smells
like round, pink mints.

This dog is supposed to be
hypoallergenic, as if
any organic creature could be. We hit the trail, sometimes
before the sun. So long

without rain, the fine dirt puffs around
his entire body, hind end
barely visible as it gallops away
up and down the mountain. The crows are out

meaning death or food. For the crows
it’s the same. I can’t see much
of them either, thick trees and steep slopes block the feathered
view, the black pecking

of a planet breaking down. Bodies cleaning up bodies
with the same result: a need
to clear more dust.

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Natalie Padilla Young is a co-founder and editor in chief of the poetry magazine Sugar House Review. She is half Puerto Rican and half Brigham Young, working as an art director for a Salt Lake City ad agency. Her first book All of This Was Once Under Water is out from Quarter Press (2023). Natalie’s poetry has appeared in swamp pink, Green Mountains Review, Tampa Review, Rattle, South Dakota Review, Los Angeles Times, Tar River Poetry, Terrain.org and elsewhere. She serves on the Lightscatter Press board and lives in southern Utah with the poet Nano Taggart and two dogs. NatalieYoungArts.com