Cooper’s Hawk

That afternoon, out running errands

on a road filled with others like me, the sky

bent a moment with a hawk and its prey.

I remembered her then, not at the sight of them—

the driver to my left saw, too: the flap and glide

a few feet above traffic, air made visible

between the wing feathers and the finest hairs

of the limp squirrel’s fur—I remembered her

because she’d taught me their names. This one,

Cooper’s hawk, raids the nests of birds and small

mammals in spring. Unlike others that bite

to kill, it squeezes prey to death in its grip;

they’ve been known to drown their catch,

preferring to use their beaks for eating, never

as a weapon. My tolerance for Nature, red in tooth

and claw, rose as my estrogen fell. The wish

to die died with my hormones, and with all that

powering down, I could finally hear myself

not think. Held tight in the hawk’s talons,

the squirrel looked already dead, or maybe

dazed as it rode the sky above me. It looked

like the wet ponytail my neighbor’s child wore

that night. She’d been in some sort of trouble

and was crying. When her father came

after her, she tried to defend herself.

No words, he said. No words.

I don’t want to hear you speak with your mouth.