a brief history of birds of prey she said by Mara Adamitz Scrupe

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a brief history of birds of prey she said
by Mara Adamitz Scrupe

were I eagle 		red tail hawk 		or any kind 
of raptor/ from the Latin rapio 
	–  you guessed it – to seize or take
	by force	as though

	* threatening 		loving 	 	chiding *

she said it & meant it: a birdlike dinosaur survivor 
	from the theropod period meaning a meat-eating T. rex 
or feathered Archaeopteryx of the Late Jurassic era
	one-hundred-fifty-million years 	–

	 from this perch/ from my stick-built arboreal 
nest		my talons outstretched to keen 
	I’d tear any vertebrate 
	figurine down to dusk	

	* swift 	dash 		cull *  	

inescapable victim/ or were I instead she said 
a stone slab 
	an articulated tile or some kind of 
tectonic shift/ my earthly plates uplifting 
	a billion years back

	* as alp or butte	ridge or range * 

– more than plain/ she’d said/ the cumbrance 
	of embrace – were I 
Vesuvial/ a coital eruption/ the gray or purple 

of molten phyllite & slate interlaced 
with banded quartz – from the Chilhowee
 Group of Catoctin Formation/ columnar up 
	the sides of these oldest 
	of mountains – in my fissibility my beading easily shivered
with the proper tools: 

	* break iron 		punch 	   	 & scriber * 
	
	I’d make a roofing slate perfectly in severed 
strata as such of my silken cleavage
	 – were I dominated planarly 
were I fragile as rat gnawed concrete		were I the storyteller

in some precise art with twenty names
	each for rain & snow & wind 	
	in explicit parlance in my oratorial 
patois –	I’d tell a score each of anger/ sadness 

	love 

the piercing of a human heart 
from my solace in the intrinsic 
	patience of this land I’d draw the gathered multitude 
a rendering that simple English could not 
	possibly challenge 

	* in hell of hot/ quinta of noiseless voices * 

were I 		 the I 		in the power	

	* threatening 		loving 	 	chiding *

	she said – I never fought
I let him take me/ fuck me 
in a starless suburban motel – relishing my right 
	to it – to my first 
	person to my own positionality to my own living 

	life/ this/ this is my story/ she said 
	surviving 	surpassing as an elephant of leviathan 
memory 		or even bigger/ better 
	Jefferson’s incognitum en famille/ protected 

or grieving not eating other animals nor caging 
	nor isolating nor torturing

were I she said a very young calf withstanding 
	slaughter or the bones
	& teeth of that massive unnamed animal found 
at Big Bone Lick or as well another 
	in South Carolina – enslaved Africans
	pointed out the resemblance – 	were I

decoder or philosopher or explicator 
of affinity
	or only myself in specious self-defense 
	after all placidly bobbing my recollective 

	waves: just a one-time physical thing
between strangers		 no victim no violator 	
just a Lake Travis trailer park because I could quickie
	coup de grace drop-off 	
	busted screen door 		slap

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