This is called "The Raptors."
"I've seen them all over the city, after midnight,
near the consulate, closer to the streetlight
than you might expect--
a parked car, windows misted, wings for a trademark,
and the muffled urgencies from the back seat--
someone about to die perhaps or be delivered--
the sleek silhouette of a woman's legs, lifted and spread
behind the fog glass, and between her legs,
a slow moving, a denser kind of fog.
Or outside the bus terminal, late
in the day, at commuter peak, the sedan that sat illicitly
by the crosswalk, the jowly man in the driver's seat
going nowhere for now, head back,
eyes closed, mouth open like a slaughtered pig's,
while his companion worked her blonde head
over his lap, and 1,000 people off work,
too intent on getting home even to notice.
But we never took that route, that strange craving to be
caught in the act, have others confirm our willingness
to trust reasons that reason itself could never explain.
When she came to me, it was for moments
she couldn't claim well enough on her own to keep,
and I took her to where the world endured,
the elements held sway, the small town a temblor had ruined,
blocks of exposed foundations that went deep,
a houseboat, where twice a day, high tide kept us buoyant
and the coastal road, with its blind turns that ended in air
and dared us to keep going, to live that vista.
Whatever we were looking for seemed to find us,
and the only ones to bear witness
were a solitary egret, a yellow moon, the stripped naked--
the stripped naked limbs of eucalyptus.
And once, off a high trail, after a warm rain, her face
gleaming, eyes intent, nipples showing
through her soaked blouse, she pressed me against a tree,
said, I like holding it in my hand,
before she took me into her mouth, one rapt creature
at fullest power, feeding on another.
And the pale mountain flowers, barely there pinks
and blues, like colors for the unborn children we'd only
dream about, these are what she drew all over her letters
later, like another language altogether, as if words alone
couldn't be trusted, couldn't do justice to that kind of need.
While above us that day, as above us now,
lazing on their massive, recurring thermals,
the raptors, seemingly at play, but raking
the valley floor for anything alive
and there for the taking, anything worth killing for."
Well, that got rid of a couple of people.
More oxygen for me.
Oh no, then others are coming in over here.
All right, come on.
Come on.
Sit down.
Let's go.
Don't got all night.