I have read this and think I know who wrote it but I'm not game to say. I am at once pleased and displeased by the lurching meter. It does illustrate the alarm of the bird. I'm not quite sure that ",fetched" works out there on its own in line 2. But I'm not sure that it doesn't either.
I love lines 8 and 9
Janet
The Bateleur
She was returning to the gauntlet when
some dolt yee-hawed a horn. She slewed left, fetched
off course, alarmed, towards the misty fen.
I heard the sharp cries of the crowd, and stretched
my ungloved wrist out wide. She landed there
as softly as a stork re-sits its nest.
She gazed at me and I absorbed her stare.
She preened her wind-combed quills, then came to rest
sphinx-still, her eyes a blaze of feral gold.
The handler bustled up to break the charm.
He mentioned luck, unlocked her talon-hold,
and claimed the eagle from my unscathed arm.
Between her wingbeats, Nature spurned the rule
that beauty shows no mercy to a fool.
|