Desert Vulture is a short exploration of outside destruction and internal implosion. It’s macabre symbolism opens up the poem to brilliance.
Capra Aegagrus, hide stretched across
a drum,
While you come with your beaters,
And bruise the skin black until it breaks,
Though there is no blood.
Cutis, opaque, taut across a hollow body,
While splintering bones pierce the skin,
And in macabre succession stab through,
The body, ripping the skin to shreds,
Leaving only ribbons of hide to decorate it.
Though there is no blood.
Capra Aegagrus, hide stretched across a drum,
While you come with your beaters,
And bruise the skin black until it breaks,
Though there is no blood.
Cutis, opaque, taut across a hollow body,
While splintering bones pierce the skin,
And in macabre succession stab through,
The body, ripping the skin to shreds,
Leaving only ribbons of hide to decorate it.
Though there is no blood.
