Raptor in the Kitchen Poem By Joyce Peseroff

Like an animal, I scavenge
after my child: half a peanut butter
sandwich, two tomatoes, skimmed from her
plate as if my blood could still

supply her flippery cavort.
No wonder a mother grows fat
with leavings, a bitch eating the afterbirth,
feral, destroying the fragrance

of nutritious young. Hawk
over chicks, eagle tearing the newlylambed, a raptor’s shadow follows,
me into the kitchen, onto the clown-faced
dish, desire to feed our own
the one command we share.

Joyce Peseroff
from Mortal Education