the vultures picked her bones
‘til they were clean as ivory
laying on the sun bleached sand
listening to the symphony of the waves

I almost stepped on her
(stopped my breath to see her there)
curled in pristine fetal pose
asking me to wonder,
how she got there
with her rhinestone-studded collar
far from the kitty litter she sniffed and tapped
before she wandered to this ancient shore,
somehow managed to stop breathing,
and become a feast for fowl

I needed a story
to tell, to explain
to map the path to this place
to this white state of grace
but the others,
the vultures,
needed only her soft flesh
and a place to fly away