Great Horned


All day I go hungry,
listening. My feathers ruffle
in gusts of muted wind.
At nightfall I drift
out over the prairie
like the ghost of a last breath,
scanning the black fields
for faint stars of warm flesh.
I count my nights
in vole skulls, my days
in the muffled rustle of leaves,
my years in empty nests
tiled with broken shells.
Sometimes I am nothing
more than an appetite
with wings.

©2005 F.J. Bergmann

"Great Horned" appeared in Hotel Amerika Vol. 5, #1 and was the runner-up in their 2006 poetry contest

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