Beggars

Three hours she avoids the cock

and hen, flushed from the same rise, tucked

close as sleeping lovers, a delicacy

too touching to waste. Still the driveway

stays empty. Shushing the whimper

of the dog's linoleum-clicking dreams,

she lifts each bird by the neck and turns

to his penciled instructions. He'll have

some explaining to do. But no use

crying as blood jewels their beaks.

The quills she tugs sputter

like candles. Down drifts,

and the dog rouses its nose

to the smoky air. How brightly

wings snap at the shoulder, span

and retract. Flesh and breastbone

yield to knife-slice a handful

of curled intestines, plump

stomach, thumbpads of liver.

Flushed under tap the parsed guts

quiver; run clear. She plumbs

the cavity again, feels

how firmly the small heart

roots before it gives

over to its leaded end. She crouches;

offers it on the flat of her hand, the dog's

warm tongue sponging her open palm. That

moment she notes the presence of another—

smooth, indecipherable as a creek stone

—then it's gone.