BECAUSE MY FATHER WASN'T HOME

Because my father wasn't home

he wasn’t home when his hawk dropped a Sombre Pigeon on our porch.

Its neck broke on our porch
          crescent-bent

as if to command vomit.

Bent, mom’s chicken dinner on the grass.

I wiped my mouth then wiped my hand on the grass.

Because I couldn’t ask the hawk

I couldn’t ask if he’d been too full to eat the pigeon

but too ardent to have let it live.
After all, he was my father’s hawk.

I’d always wondered how it felt to hold a fledgling

          fledgling heart thrumming.

Because the pigeon’s neck broke on our porch

I knew.