Harry Humes

Harry Humes

from The Bottomland:

Vultures

by Harry Humes

Three we found sheathed in ice

after a late freezing rain.

They were like glittering bottles

stuck on a branch,

their small eyes watching,

eyes that could see

rabbit guts half a mile away.

We lowered them in a sling

and carried them like logs to the shed.

Our daughter traced a finger

over the red turkey heads.

She lay next to them.

They were longer by inches.

Suddenly a horny leg broke through,

a shoulder, some wing feathers,

and then the stench of their true

design drove us away.

We left the shed door open and watched

from the kitchen as they wobbled out,

fussing their feathers, stretching their wings,

bouncing grotesquely, then rising easily,

beautifully, the world’s real

pragmatists using the slightest updraft,

scanning the landscape, scouring it.

Their whole being was set for this

Puritan hatred of living flesh,
this love of neatness.