Switched-on Gutenberg Issue 15
Gains & Losses
 
 
Red-tailed Hawk
                                                      

 
The hawk stands on one foot
with death in her other grip.
 
She does not pity.  Sharp-beaked
she returns to division.  The heart,
tendons, pink lungs, gall bladder,
shining loops of intestines, link
after link,  go down
 
and down.  Crimson,  gold-green,
and violet,  she parses each
from bone with hooked beak.
Division is her property.
 

 
 




Photo Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Copyright 2006,  2009,  Laura Snyder

Laura L. Snyder keeps scribbling in journals with a slanted profile so that words pour out in Seattle’s rainy weather.  Look for her in Wazee,  Flutter Poetry Journal,  Cascade Journal,  Alimentum Journal,  Switched-on Gutenberg,   Pontoon 9,  and Chrysanthemum.  "Red-tailed Hawk" was first published in Ekphrasis,  Vol. 4,  No. 1,  Spring/Summer 2006.


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