Owl

Todd McClintock

You ate ten minutes ago
And you’re already vomiting;
The bitter bones of a lesser bird
Climbing
And rotating
Up through your neck
And pushing at the sides of your beak.
Never again,
You think to yourself.
And the ball of parts slides out
Drops through rotting limbs and leaves
And you hear
Every fucking bone
Pierce dirt,
Each the armor of a fallen soldier
From the Army of the Exhausted.

“Don’t get blood on you, soldier,”
You hear from your peers,
“Should it land on your talons,”
They suggest,
“Lick it off,
Scrub the area with urine,
Do whatever it takes
To disguise the smell.”
Bullshit, you think.
You don’t explain,
But they observe.
You take out a target
And his blood is on your talons,
Enough to print audible drops
Onto rock.
You dip a clean feather in.
Another, and another.
Another, and another,
Cake it onto your
Downy exterior,
Until you’re netted in a dark,
Wet web.
The others are silent.
They watch you climb into the night,
And cut through the recesses
Of the tragic and silent canopy.