The hawk suddenly goes completely berserk and busts out of its sweatshirt bondage, shrieking like a banshee. She turns back quickly to see him plastered up against the rear window, both wings stretched to their limit; frozen like some medieval gargoyle. The car lurches onto the shoulder then hits the ditch, pitching the dark green ceramic urn to the floor. Ashes spew across the dashboard and windshield. A cloud envelops the upholstery. She’s breathing it in as she clutches wildly at the spinning wheel. Her mother has entered her lungs. The hawk tumbles forward, black talons stretched taut, clutching the air and entangling itself in her long red hair. She screams in exactly the same pitch as Clyde McPhatter. The car jolts to a stop in a sand dune but the engine keeps running. “A Lover’s Question” keeps playing. She hurtles backward out of the car with the hawk still snared in her hair. She pummels its bloody body with her small white fists, rolling in the sand as though trying to extinguish a sudden fire. The hawk breaks free and flies off like it had never been wounded, both wings pumping, then gliding downward and churning again to gain altitude. She watches it from the sand as it floats away. The radio keeps playing. The engine keeps humming. Wind moans across the low, empty expanse. She stays there on her belly for a long, long time until her breath comes back. Her face is coated with ashes. She can feel them clinging to her lips as she runs her tongue across them. Her mother tastes like salt.