I envy the hawk her eye,
that culls the hare and the quail from their nests.
She honors the Bible, an eye for an eye,
and expels in the pellet’s feathers and bone what she cannot digest.

She knows the wind before the wind knows itself.
She flies the valley blind in her mind while on the perch of her captor.
The quarry’s shin of butcher beef she claims for herself.
With bells of brass nickel, each leg strapped,

she cannot untie the falconer’s knot.
The smell of the glove is rank with blood
and mauled of its leather stitches by dogs and rats. Rot
excites her and she waits for the lifting of the hood

as if a bride under a lace veil longing to sigh
at the crush of the groom’s hands. I envy the hawk her eye.