The Lammergeier Daughter
That night, I opened your wardrobe and found
a trophy of vultures, their necks pierced
by hanger hooks. I saw at once
that you hunted everything I loved—
the griffon, the Himalayan, the lammergeier,
who haunted our home with wheeling cries.
I peeled off my skin then, and robed myself
as a bird bride. Veiled in morning mist
I married the sky. Of course, you aimed
at my heart, but as the bullet tore through me
I wrapped my talons around your skull,
lifted you high, and dropped you as a lamb
drops newborn from his mother
onto the snow-fleeced earth.
I landed beside you on the quilt.
And when the flesh-eaters had done their work,
it was I, your lammergeier daughter,
who devoured your bones—look, Father,
how they slide down my throat like rifles.
