Grief can knock you off your perch

GOODBYE NANCY

At the Profile Books party I stand beneath trees

At the Crypt on the Green, so that I can talk raptors

To the editor of my magpie memoir as I drop

An oversize canape from a skewer into my cordial.

I will write about the female giant of an eagle owl

That I have just buried. For nine years

She watched over me from the lofty perch

Of her superiority. Arriving with boyfriend and eggs

She gave me three of her babies. She was only twenty-one,

But her age was given by someone who did not

Have her interests at heart when filling out her A10.

She’d dwarf me from her grip on my glove,

And turn the orange orbits of her accusations towards me

Like two setting suns, but when that last day came

And she flew from perch to platform to steady herself

And be ready as her organs gave up, I felt such gratitude

For our years together. I stroked her for two days

Before I let the earth eat her into a hole,

Her six-foot wingspan folded as tightly as blankets

On her way into the dark.