We have this bone-chill bird, you see,
who stalks us from the family tree.

It began at an epoch in antiquity,
it followed from Bournemouth to Chesapeake
a specter in the draft of a sailing ship
in pursuit of all that’s putrid.

He has a long neck that enables
the probing of our cavernous carcasses.
The hair is disgorged, but bones are digested.

I have seen him
consuming a carrion cousin or two,
fat on the fetid meat of aunts and uncles
and Father, now three years dead.

Though highly developed,
his olfactory sense can be fooled.
Why only recently he mistook Mother for dead,
tore away her memory.

Some days his shadow startles me
in phantom flight of ever shrinking circles.
Emboldened, when I forget
down he sets, to watch from a nearby tree.
I shout curses, throw stones, shoo him away
sometimes he leaves me for days…

But he always returns.

02/05/2006

Author's Note: Death, my constant companion, patiently perches upon my shoulder.

Posted on 02/06/2006
Copyright © 2026 David Hill