Driving to pick up fresh eggs from a poet
with hens, I pass red crabapples and Yoshino
cherries, one full bloom, the other a tad faded.
Crave the romaine salad with two hard-boiled
eggs I’ll eat for supper, dressing: olive oil,
red wine vinegar, peanut butter, pepper.
Crisp, succulent green leaves, creamy luxury
of orange yolk. At an intersection, on pavement
in front of my car, a Cooper’s hawk. I grab
for my camera, but the light turns green,
and two vehicles behind me want to accelerate.
Edging closer, I see the hawk grips a house finch
in its talons. Horrified, I inch toward it, hope
it bolts. Head turned my way, its large dark
eyes pin me. A horn honks, I roll more.
The raptor swings its wings open, slings itself
upward, a blur, zooms over my roof. I turn
right, unsettled, clamped by the hawk’s
long thick-banded tail, slate wings, black cap,
hooked beak. Maybe its chicks squawk
in a nest, mouths ached open. I can’t
be sure the finch did not escape
the panicked ascent. It remained
inert, maybe stunned or playing dead.
I can’t deny the hawk’s beauty, divinity,
the imagined softness of its striped russet
breast, ruffled, blasting past me.
