apex predator

apex predator

How he came upon the wet hollow

of it on the beach,

how the gulls, salvaging, wave smacked,

were still

having their saturated way with it,

lifting a wing to pick and peck

at the cavity.  Nothing there to save,

not a feather or a foot

(not that he could)

Because what’s bald about it is lost

in the salt and flotsam, the clay-gray

foam every December tide’ll toss.  Because combing

brings things like this sometimes:

naked nature with her legs

spread wide to the lidless sky.
And all manner of birds, crabs,

sand fleas meet to take their turn

to crawl or hop into the cupola of its tomb

and bend their head to eat. 

And wouldn’t I,

given the right desire, do

the same?  Scatter the scavengers

to their wait while I thumbed through

the wings, the breast, the horn-hard

rugged beak, almost rigged with teeth?  I’m

not so special, walking away. 

If things were a different, if it were fresh-kill-

random, I’d be cupping my own

prize to dry above my kitchen window,

a wing feather maybe, and grieve

for a mythology

I’ve only ever read about or heard

about, but never once seen,

even when eagles,

in flight right in front of me,  are black and white

simple against the dove colored cliffs.  Such birds build

their nests on faith.   And fall from sometimes.

Straight into the sea, meat and a few

curios for men and me,  

for gulls and fleas, unspeakably at ease.