When I drive down 79, I don’t usually pay attention

to the sky, the way clouds bend into the blue and green light. 

The car engine murmurs. The steering wheel collects sweat. 

I propel forward by habit, the years of moving down

this highway every Monday morning. I pack the car.

I drink coffee. I move with the curves of the highway.

Big rigs swerve, muddle the lanes and I’m alone, suspended

from all time in the eighty-six miles between home and work.

How weightless the distance feels. Then, in a whirling turn

they appear, grey or brown, white feathers luminous,

sparkling of blood, rain, the dangers of living near cement.

One by one they show up, perched on light poles, on highway

signs, on stripped trees empty of leaves. Fierce, heads turning,

yellow eyes moving, they scan the road, the metal cars, the trucks.

Sit in wait. Sentries waiting for time, ready to leap into the air, ready

to stoop into a field, grab a rabbit, gopher, groundhog, pierce 

their insides the soft middles, grip the bodies with talons,

snap necks, carry their dead food to the woods, rip into

flesh and feed. I drive by the drama too quickly, looking up,

looking out the windows of the car, wanting to follow them

across the grass, into trees and bushes, wishing I could leave

the car on the side of the road, be an acolyte to their terror.  

I am suddenly alive. Crane my neck to see them fly wild

with turbine wings, black beaks, bodies that slice sky.  

I never know if they’re hawks or kites or falcons.

They are still somewhere beyond the highway and trees,

living on blood and entrails, restless for the next flight. 

And I become a creature driven by blood, by heat, ready

to puncture the sky, grab bodies, find the innards and feast.

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