They scuttle
across the dead grass
to where the carrion lay.
It glimmers in the sun,
warm,
exposed,
and they can't resist it.
They pick through
the vital bits
furniture,
clothes,
engorge on the offerings.
They leave
with their new old things,
licking their beaks
while the rest of the old ladies life,
the inedible parts,
family pictures,
her favorite shoes,
are tossed into a dumpster.
2 comments:
So long story short, the old lady next door died a few years back and her house foreclosed. Her family didn't care for her. Now a realtor bought the place and they throw all of her shit out on the lawn, and people just come and take it. It's one of the sadder things I've ever witnessed. They pick through her possessions literally like vultures.
You really catch the sadness of this situation with this poem. The vulture metaphor works really well here too. The first stanza seems like a simple description of vultures but you flip it on its head with the second and third stanzas which makes the reader revisit the first stanza and I admire that. I think this poem fits in with a number of your other poems about loss and its aftermath. Are you starting a collection?
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