Heaped

Flesh
layered:
back to chest,
curved white, black
patched, chest to chest,
back to back; all plumpness
with sheer edges; the hesitation
of claws, a beak dash; feathers brittled
to beached razor shells; steeled feathers
a whetted blade on butcher slab, unsheathed
to fight off the moment after this moment of near
-sleep beauty, that moment when maggots untangle
the delicacy of coiled intestines and death plucks song
from cut throats, flight from taut muscles, light from loosed
guts, unreeling. Strong wings folded, the arc sweep of wide tails
pared, bodies reduced to bared bones. Long night falls,and history
rushes by, the unlit pyre levelled now: birds to worms, worms to soil;
lifting to drifting, shifting to sifting, silting to settled; soil to new earth.