All the other birds have fled
disturbed, as a magpie makes perch
upon the dirt-dust iron hook
where a selection of old nuts hang

His blue gaze is hammer and nails
as he fixes me in place, and then
stabs a hanging half coconut shell
repeatedly. Full of fat and gristle,

the carrion hang on the feeders
was not there ’til he arrived, and now
as he flies, he leaves behind
a small lamb whose eyes are gone.

Another one now takes a turn.
Her clean beak is too soon soiled –
she flies guiltily off. And I,
I watch the clean bones drop.

As for the flak of trembling feather –
they learned as much as they watched
in turn, they flap to floor and search
and slurp up all the fallen scraps