Peregrine

Peregrine

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The peregrine don’t bother with
the beak and feet and toss
them to the sidewalk off
the top of the Methodist’s tower
 
like KFC out the window
of a speeding car of drunks,
sparrow and pigeon parts
on the sidewalk, a roadside litter,
 
the road here in this case is the sky.
It rains blood more literally
than it always does and the birds
of prey have non-metallic feathers.
 
Everyone in Chicago has read
in the Times, coyotes prefer Mc D’s.
Our kind of wild life steps right up,
robs the joint in the disguise
 
of himself he knows no one would believe.
True, animals don’t use
human technologies, but the changes
in us, because of such advances,
 
advance the animal relation to us.
They’ve necessarily learned
vicariously what they need to know
of how two-legged technologies run;
 
they keep up with us the same way
the dumbest button pusher
keeps up with the MIT computer
engineer. Not rocket science, but enough
 
to know what it does is there
to work around or with whatever it is.
Adaptation is an education in more
fields than we imagine.

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