Vulture, Circling

February white, and the clean wing
of the vulture punctuates
the pristine air, the snow so lit
it’s blue, another sea, a heaven for grief.
But this bird knows what the dead are for,
knows what’s ripe to be taken,
his serrated feather-edge like a saw
working the sky’s perimeter. His life
is bent on watching, waiting
for the second to sweep
his sleek body down. For him, accuracy
is what I call ferocity. I’m the one
assigning value, my warning in the word.
Vulture, turkey buzzard, crow-- all of them
repel me with their unflinching need.
The body dies, they eat it,
rot and all, a progression
not so different from the ordinarily beautiful
flower giving itself up to fruit, then the fruit
withering for the sake of seed.
And so on, without sentiment.

*Cleopatra Mathis' five books of poems have all been published by Sheep Meadow Press. Her work has been widely published in anthologies, textbooks, magazines and journals, including: The New Yorker, Triquarterly, American Poetry Review, The Extraordinary Tide; New Poetry By American Women, And The Made Thing: An Anthology Of Southern Poetry.