September 2014
/Red-tailed
by Joanne DeSimone Reynolds
She of the troposphere.
Of ash-tipped cirrus-wings
pinning all that is current.
She of her own sun.
Attendant as any bridesmaid
who fluffs the gown.
Death as much her rapture
as love. The mischief
of her rapture.
Cumulus-breasted.
Reliquary of her own ivory
caging an egg of myrrh.
Envy her billiard-eye.
Her closed-beak prophesies
—fresh-black
scribbling a clean field.
She, too, of the ancient
gyre-dive’s
lone confinement.
Her talents root prey
more succinctly
even as it mouth-squirms.
Swift of terra firma
she is ambition itself.
The story I read on the website about the red-tailed hawk capturing one of the farm’s chickens, prompted this poem. There are some beautiful, if graphic, photographs of the kill on the website, as well.
Joanne DeSimone Reynolds lives in Scituate, Massachusetts. Her book of poems Comes a Blossom was published by Main Street Rag in 2014.
