* * *
I.
You already know how I feel about crows
and the girls they follow, crows who make
little distinction between a worm and an eye
plucked from a flattened stag on the interstate.
You already know what I think about making meals
from the remains of something long dead.
And yet when I passed you in the park
as the sky had just begun to spit
irresolute drops from rushing clouds
and I did not screech
my bike to stillness
to greet you, you still
reached out, later, to blow on the embers
of a blaze you left untended, to feed on
the last bits of gristle from the clumsy doe
you starved, though you held the cure
to her hunger.
And yet when I passed the brilliant green feathers
of a freshly dead hummingbird on the sidewalk
outside my house minutes later (I already know
what sort of omen that is), I still went inside,
and in the dark, on my bed, with that blue-
white glow illuminating my face—my
frown that of a bashful ghost—I opened
the window to answer the tap, tap, tapping
at the glass, and I let the carrion crow
pick at my flesh once more.
* * *
II.
“Seagulls would eat chicken nuggets
if they were hungry enough!” we laugh,
(“or plastic rings,” we do not laugh, just
know, even as we swipe our plastic
cards for six-ringed cans of Keystone,
Boh, White Claw) yet little do we speak
of just how desperate,
how hungry they become,
how, when the moon is just so
and the trash cans have all been purged,
and not even fish carcasses remain for these
honking, grey-winged carrion eaters,
they do not need their poultry
breaded & fried as they pick
through the nests (cribs!)
of their comrades
to steal away
the chick
who’ll
least
be missed in the morning.
(So, too, do I ravage old poems
in the dark of night, my lost
ideas least to be remembered,
the early gristle bites of the
poet I might later be.)
So, too, do I pick through
the remains of you, and you
of me, we carrion eaters, picking
at the gristle clinging to each other’s
rotting bones, laughing
like two seagulls
in the morning.
* * *
Jacob Budenz is a writer, multi-disciplinary performer, professor, and witch with a BA from Johns Hopkins and MFA from University of New Orleans. The author of PASTEL WITCHERIES (Seven Kitchens Press 2018), Budenz has work published or forthcoming in journals including Pussy Magic, Slipstream, Wizards in Space, and more as well as anthologies by Mason Jar Press, Lycan Valley Press, and Mad Scientist Journals. You can follow Jake’s adventures on Instagram (@dreambabyjake), Twitter (@jakebeearts) or the internet beyond (www.jakebeearts.com).
featured photo by Brian Henry, @bbbriiiannn on Instagram
