Pretty girl
You're afraid, you child
You're gaining weight upon those shoulders
Shoulders used to be bone
Grown muscle
And your heart lost its size

You're no longer small,
Though you feel it.
You miss it.

But your talons
Were ready to strike for years,
Now it's time to spread your wings.

Huntress
by Michael R. Burch

after Baudelaire

Lynx-eyed, cat-like and cruel, you creep
across a crevice dropping deep
into a dark and doomed domain.
Your claws are sheathed. You smile, insane.
Rain falls upon your path, and pain
pours down. Your paws are pierced. You pause
and heed the oft-lamented laws
which bid you not begin again
till night returns. You wail like wind,
the sighing of a soul for sin,
and give up hunting for a heart.
Till sunset falls again, depart,
though hate and hunger urge you—On!
Heed, hearts, your hope—the break of dawn.

Originally published by Sonnetto Poesia. Keywords/Tags: Baudelaire, cat, catlike, cruel, creep, creeping, claws, paws, talons, huntress, heart, prey, hate, hunger, alliteration, sonnet

the witch
by michael r. burch

her fingers draw into claws
she cackles through rotting teeth ...
u ask “are there witches?”
                                              pshaw!
(yet she has my belief)

Keywords/Tags: witch, witches, Halloween, fingers, nails, claws, talons, cackle, cackles, teeth, rotting, rotten, broom, broomstick, cat

Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons—
the ones you trim to hide
the predator inside.

Ten thousand creatures sacrificed;
but really, what’s the loss?
Apply a splash of gloss.

You picked the perfect color
to mirror nature’s law:
red, like tooth and claw.

I thought about titling or subtitling this one “A mini-ode to manicure” but thought better of it. Please note that this poem is not about female predators but the way the human race “glosses over” its predatory nature. We may appear to be “civilized” but what are we doing to the planet and its other inhabitants? Keywords/Tags: polish, nails, talons, claws, predator, gloss, loss, red, tooth, claw, pollution, climate change, global warming, mass extinction, genocide

everything was so mundane,
no sound,
no name.

the silence watched over us like a hawk,
resting it’s talons on the trees above.

there was no thud,
no beat,
no reverb.

the machines did not whir,
or click,
or crackle.

the strings never hummed,
the girl never sang,
and the child never played.

neurons following a set circuit,
run,
stop,
go.

the sun always set,
yet it had never risen.

hardwired to the equipment,
but the machine never worked,

because the processor was coated in a mundane molasses.

moving through gray honey,
black and white retinas perceive gray things
for our slow-moving hands to paint.

the words were the same,
the day never changed,


it was, and always will be
the same.

The falcon flying high above
Keen eye on unaware prey
Its hostile eyes scanning each move
Oblivious of impending danger
Hovering above it with stealth
Wings spread wide in elegance
Swooping down with speed
Hunting its prey with beak and talons