You who dare,
with unflinching eye, turn an upstart stare
in the very eye of the sun,
and for replenishment of pantry,
and conversion into meat,
clutch and claw
at the rot and putrefaction
of a corpse …
tell me
how of the stench
is your body purified,
how pollution turns into power
of upwheeling flight
with lit-up feathers
where no lark soars
with its song.
Like a priest,
I climb a cliff,
shackle myself
with fetters of steel
and serve my sinful entrails,
fodder for your beak,
to become your flesh
in the spotless torrent
where the light spars.