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[Poetry]

THE FALCON
by Shane Seely

A peregrine this morning took a pigeon on the wing,
dove between the power lines

and snatched it from its box of air
and landed in the driveway,

where it stood, poised and polished as a trophy,
on the broken thing.

But the pigeon wasn’t dead. It shifted
in the falcon’s claws

to free its head and wings. The falcon
balanced there, a trick-rider

on a horse, moving with its moving
mount—until all movement

ceased, its talons mounted now
upon the pigeon’s neck. A drift

of feathers spread around. But still the falcon
didn’t feed—it paused

instead beneath the sudden, open sky,
all hooked beak

and topaz eye, and pivoted its head, wary
of the world of thieves.

  



BIRD STEALING BREAD

Between the restaurant’s
                        outdoor tables
the house sparrow hops
                        repeating its single
liquid note. Nearby,
                        a spaniel doesn’t lift
its head. The brick’s
                        crumb-dusted, a field
at sparrow-eye level
                        ripe for harvest. The bird
bounces, picks a crumb,
                        another, lets it drop
and picks the next.
                        It tilts its head
as though it half-heard
                        a distant sound.
And then that note, that note,
                        round like a bead of water,
moving oblong through the air,
                        filling the patio drop
by drop until it
                        sluices the blank face
of every brick. Singing
                        please, please, please.

  

  

Shane Seely's The Snowbound House won the 2008 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry and was published in 2009 by Anhinga Press. His chapbook, History Here Requires Balboa, was published in 2012 by Slash Pine Press. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and his website is shaneseely.com. 


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