Vultures, Then
I’m this obedient. The lammergeier batters
the lateral of a lamb’s femur. Then, the vulture
drops bodies from the heavens. If Jesus, as a carpenter,
crafted the frame for a bed, I’d wish to dream there
indefinitely. A historian corrects me that Jesus
was a mason. His tools, hewn from shale and bone,
constructed houses for the people who would break
apart their rooms to cast stones
at their idle animals. Saints for the minutiae,
demons for the rest. In Islamic mythology,
there is a woman, part dog, part goat, devouring
men, genitalia and all, near the Red Sea.
Then, there is another creature: jewel-eyed
like a housefly’s wings in paradise, caught
in the shape of a girl. Bestowed in the afterlife
upon faithful men for what else? Pleasures
beyond belief. I’ve taken wing
at the smallest disturbance. After midnight,
I was dreamless; my beloved held my waist
in three yawnfuls of darkness. What beast
am I? A peregrine force. As insubstantial,
as untethered as smoke. I’ve been
a girl with talons, and I’ve been that
domestic animal. To be elevated, then plummeted,
from an altitude where others locate
divinity. I know how to
fragment: each nail, the feathered hammer.
***
Author photograph courtesy of Jai Hamid Bashir
