Preying

We climbed down to the water. You asked if I was sure
and I pointed at the hawks hanging high in the current
as one of them dived, like divine
intervention, like an answer I didn’t want
you to guess. We bore witness—
the freefall, the red fumble, a small life flashing
safely through brambles, a sharp corner, and wide wings lifting
towards the same patch of sky,
like an adult abandoning smashed glass on the sidewalk,
keep it moving, nothing to see here.

I said not the best day to be hunting
and you said they’re preying and something
I’d known my whole life shifted;
the high-noon shadow cast over a face,
the glance from beneath kohl-kajal brows—

            brahminy kite, crested eagle, sparrowhawk, shikra

—there and gone, blown west and west until west
became east, and I left you among clouds
of defeated poppies and limped all the way
to the lip of the Pacific, and it was almost enough,
to have taken for granted that the heave and roar
would still be waiting, that despite my landlocked years
I was still one of the faithful, and then you asked
have you touched the water yet and I wanted you
to disappear—

for doing it again, for ripping out the heart
of my pilgrimage disguised as child’s play,
for not pretending and above us
the same bird spun to earth.

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