Carrion Our Merry Way
Huddled against the morning brisk,
a fog-coated chill, the vulture
watches cars pass by, disinterested,
slow blinks, squatting black
and plump in the exact spot
where, Monday morning, a murderous
car crash sullenly interrogated
mile after mile of rush hour traffic,
right at the junction ramp where
295 slides itself back into
the stream of I-95, swollen black
highway, black and plump
vulture squatting with an
air of subdued good cheer,
observing the motorists careening
past in big steel carrion-creating
machines, beady laughing eyes
asking, "Do any of your drive
as shitty as that guy on
Monday?" Bald, black head bobs
submission and plea and "Top o'
the morning to you," while making
one last check for a scrap of very
crappy driver or even a decaying rag
of dumb, wide-eyed, good Lord, how
stupid can a creature be? roadkill deer.
Black and plump, a gleeful pariah,
black and plump and uglier than
sin covered with third-degree burns
and "Who gives a damn if no one
likes me and I'm too cowardly
and weak to hunt and I eat
the decomposing corpses of
creatures that weren't even
appetizing when the meat
was fresh?" I wave to the
fat little bastard and I smile
to myself over his absurd, humble
nobility and I go put in an eight
hour day, circling mindlessly in an office,
my sky, and I feel pretty good about
my place in the food chain as I pick dead bones
clean. |
