Featureless

The valley quail has fed the cannibal owl

and flecks red spots into a round mandala on

snow-bright squares of ground where grass roots

thatch the roof of worms' worlds and sundered

wings turn into mulch through seasons.

They hunt and hunt.

From under and inside this man-construct, I hear

the snap and fold of feathers blinding stars

that could be suns for other planet runs or

dust remains of was.  The slap and snap is like a sheet

four-cornered and cotton, a prisoner of clothes pins

on a line, the whip-master is wind.  Not speckled

down, not gold-soft pale.  Not kind.  This beak

of random meanness - no.  Not so.  Nor

unfair, nor grisly by intent the taloned aim

and take of targets nearing dark.  Sleep paints

them alive, six-feathered crests wobbling through

the chase, my own face, featureless and wide

above their circling eights across the ribcage

of a deer, someone's roadkill, some other's destiny

to stopper off the breath, the scents

of cottage roses on my gate, and vines climbed

through the jaw.

[after Tess Gallagher's Fathomless, from Moon Crossing Bridge]