Give Me a Vulture Any Day

~ On some things I am clear ~

‘The Wounded Deer’ Frida Kahlo

and I will not go quietly

I judge the murderer

I judge the rapist

I cannot

judge a woman

or a victim

who kills a tormentor.

The anguished know —

within shadows

agonies

cry

gems die

everyone hears

no one hears.

They know —

pain recedes

gathers force,

a great big bullock

rising from a swamp

then attacks,

but we

framed in outcast

doorways

we all stand

separated

like hairs

on a dried paintbrush.

We

bristle with

untraceable

lines of compassion

blurred

if not totally erased.

Watered-down spines

eye

wan seductions

outstare

decrepit navels

sometimes mine,

sometimes yours

no pigment

in the world

will bless us

no medium bind us.

It’s all foolish,

really

a pretense of obliviousness,

forgivable

only if childlike.

A fox, a hawk,

give me a vulture any day.

They are pure.

A mole or platypus,

they are true

they have no

need for sight

or artifice.

A fair instinct