They finally picked up the deer carcass from under the oak tree

The one I would check daily like a sundial

how lucky to be covered only moments after birth

to be spared from this entire world bathed in cruelty.

For weeks I would drive past the bloated corpse

of a stag who who tried to go over the bridge

instead of under and I grow jealous of the flies,

their whole life minimized to the singular

task of feeding their children

of moving the bloated rot across the river

My father shoots a blackbird with his pellet gun

and hangs it upside down to detract the others

but this does not work.

eyeless but still watching

as the breeze twists it in a lazy circle.

How easy it is for the rest of the flock to ignore another’s suffering,

to put body out of mind and continue to eat.

Ask the birds out there if they have to think about their flying

or if they just spread their wings and go.