Finally, they come. Their wings beat fast as they land, blowing sand in my open eyes. Tears form, but I do not move. I lie still on the hot, sun baked dirt. I wait for the right moment.

I feel the first peck on my side, right underneath my ribs. The vulture’s beak slices through the skin and hooks it, tearing a hole as it pulls away. I know what it’s after, but I do not move. I think to myself that perhaps I am sweating. Perhaps my heart is beating so loudly that it will betray me, and the vultures will take flight. Foolish thoughts. There is no water in my body. My blood flows like syrup, and the vultures lick it up with their little pointed tongues.

Reassurance gnaws on my shoulder. There is not much meat there so this second bird moves closer to my head. It bites at my neck, right where the bitches like to kiss me because it makes me shudder. And do I move? Not a flinch.

And so comes the third bird. This one hops right in front of my face. Hunger growls from deep within me. My jaw tightens. I salivate. My eyes travel up bony talons to thick legs, to a meaty breast, to a juicy neck, and then there is the vulture’s head, haloed by the sun.

I am ready. I am ready to feast. My muscles tense. My mind numbs. My spirit roars, and just when I am just about to strike, I feel my eye being ripped from its socket.

I scream at the top of my lungs, and my voice goes as high as a bitch in birthing. I shoot out my left hand blindly and close around something soft and fleshy. I kick, and I flail, and I screech. Two birds take flight from me, and I yell out after them. Rolling over onto my back, I lie there panting. I feel something scratching my forearm, and when I turn to look, I see out of my good eye a vulture raking me with his talons. I bring it back and forth across my body, smacking it hard across the ground on either side. It makes some gargling sounds, and I laugh.

I let it go.  Laying there panting, I watch that bastard bird limp away. It hops high and flutters its wings, but one is broken, and it crashes down in a mess of dingy feathers. I laugh and crawl myself up onto my legs. I walk over to the bird and kick it. It squawks at me. It apologizes for trying to eat me, and I tell the bird that he is forgiven. I understand. He was hungry. It’s easy to get hungry in the desert. I get hungry too.

I say that there is no harm done. I feel my side and my neck. The wounds have grown shallow. I put my dirty fingers in my new eye and start to cry. Painful white light blurs slowly into focus, and I see a wounded vulture trying to take flight, now in new perspective. My hunger pangs in my stomach. I wrap my brown fingers around pink flesh, right above its breast and right below its skull. With two hands I pull the bird’s neck taut.

Finally, I feast.

when we reenact st. sebastian

i will thrust a score of arrows

and caress your black licorice hair.

syrupy mouths will waltz whilst

secretly canonizing one another,

one-two-three, one-two-three until

the rich buttercream dawn cries

“gentlemen, last call for drinks.”

sweat and sunshine will be to us

as olive oil to the bathers of rome:

we will wash ‘til smooth and slick,

our bodies hot gold on the anvil

of some hapless blind blacksmith.

wearily, i’ll grab the shafts and pluck

the arrows out, mopping blood

with doilies and sweet coconut,

famished for your resurrection.

It’s a problem with forgiveness I have:
Smoking cigarettes outside to save your Dad’s life.
How does it work to do it?
Well, at least it doesn’t hurt to try.
But can’t I see the best person to have?
Miserable, living alone with his wife
Minimum anything can’t cut it
And who says it does?  Liars.
Liar, liar pants on fire
A couple of stints right in the vein
A couple of stints to keep playing this game
Besides the attack, everything’s the same
A couple of nothing is two to your name
Well, I forgive you, even if it is a problem
And this cherry will burn to the cotton
Before I say I love you
And when the stints won’t fix it
And it clots all around
I’ll remember to say
That I loved that one sound
Of you snoring when you were in bed with my Mom
And I snuck right upstairs after sophomore prom
And I was wet from the hot tub and I set my alarm
For one thirty p.m. to tell you how late I was gone
I was dealing with English when that phone rang
And I couldn’t pick it up
Because I was in class
And it didn’t bother me much
Because it got Mom out of the house
I was all alone to hear the news.
You were moved down to Lansing
Because all heart surgeons are different
Because you’re problem exceeded emotional emergency
And I got caught up in dependency
And the minimum thing, with the currency
And I felt really bad, because I knew you would miss me
And I have become accepting
And I really do love you.
And even if it happens twenty years from now
I’ll be there, from ghost to person, picking the blood from the stints
And I’ll try my best to keep you going
Or to just let you go if that’s what you really need.