From an office window

Have you watched a crow
polish off a rat?
I did.
Yesterday.

Well.
The juicy entrails long
winding and twisted
into gossip go first.

The rat’s innards flow.
First fluently.
Then
h a l t i n g l y
in small talks.

Coming to the heart of the matter.
The nervy crow
picks up an arterial thread
from a criss-cross
of thoughts and treads across
meatydetailssilentspacesfatsunshedandsuddenly
jerks up
………………..
to nibble on a memory.

Elsewhere
two clock hands
come together
in a beak closing
to devour time
memories
conversations.

Then comes the kidney.
But much water has already flown.
What use is a dead rat?
Or so I thought.

The glutton picks the bones clean.
Slowly, surely, leisurely.
Every peck, a jab at time.

The crow relishes the memory
of the rat that once was
and I remember our
old conversations.

****

Published in Unisun's poetry anthology Peacock's cry