The Hawk
On July 21, 2005, Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.) voted for a bill to extend the Patriot Act for another 10 years. President Bush hailed the vote.
From the playground's biggest tree's biggest branch
the hawk through daylight drops to the monkeybars
top deck, claws sunk in plunder. The hawk
shakes its gray-brown feathers, leans, with its beak
unzips the little squirrel suit, probes into the hot mess.
Nothing bothers it. The raincoated tourist grabs
his wife's wrist knobs, gabbles a strange language,
transfixed by the bird, and the scaly foot closes down.
A mom clamps her hand over the eyes of her kid,
his face so small her hand covers it. She hustles him
bellowing away; he wrenches at her fingers,
will break them, will, if he can, to see. Watchers
gasp, groan, video. "I love this," a man whispers,
hands in his suit pockets. "I'm a hunter but I never
get to hunt anymore, so I love this!" The hawk
from the carcass extracts a bit of bloody intestine.
Flips it long, thin, looplike, over his beak. A gewgaw.
Tilts, eats. Gets another. Loops and eats again.
My Brother is Getting Arrested Again (Pitt Poetry Series)
Oh jeez. I think I stopped breathing for a few seconds there.
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