VULTURES
Tommy Frank O’ Connor
Wings plume the sky.
Magnifico the ogres cry;
It’s just like the brochure says.
Feathered targets fly
Free in Irish skies. No ghillie
Needed here to
lead our guns.
Bang, repeated Bang; trigger
happy hunting killer men.
Robins, blackbirds, thrushes die.
Starlings flight shot asunder.
Assassins’s magazines snap
new death packages inside
the hammers.
Snowflake feathers
float to ground but cannot
cover scattered gore.
The mess,
which licensed fowlers measure
as success, waits as carrion
for vultures.