A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House
Elizabeth Weir
Witness to Predation
A mighty WHOMP so immediate, I duck—
a bird-slam into glass—coffee slops.
Below our window, a pigeon lies stunned, head up,
neck not broken. I fetch a cloth to mop the spill
and a robin-sized bird, butcher-beaked,
stands on the pigeon’s broad back. A merlin.
It must have harried the pigeon into our pane.
The merlin tears at the bird’s head, rip, rip,
feathers fly—eliminate intelligence first—pigeon
struggles, flops, tilts, too stunned to flee. It’s head
drops, bird dying like a dismantled democracy.
Merlin widens the wound, tears meat from bones.
Numbed passive by the pace of dismemberment,
I watch, shocked. The predator, spurred by purpose,
guts the carcass of a body, healthy and functioning,
until all that remains is the skeleton of what had been.
Elizabeth Weir is the author of the poetry collections When Our World Was Whole (Kelsay Books, 2022) and High on Table Mountain (North Star Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Orchards Poetry Journal, Agates, The London Reader, Gyroscope, Adanna, and other journals. Born and raised in England, Weir practiced nursing in Cape Town before settling in Minnesota with her husband and two sons. Now retired, she wrote journalism and theater reviews and was mayor of Medina, Minnesota.
Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.
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