The Panic Bird

just flew inside my chest. Some

days it lights inside my brain,

but today it's in my bonehouse,

rattling ribs like a birdcage.

If I saw it coming, I'd fend it

off with machete or baseball bat.

Or grab its scrawny hackled neck,

wring it like a wet dish rag.

But it approaches from behind.

Too late I sense it at my back --

carrion, garbage, excrement.

Once inside me it preens, roosts,

vulture on a public utility pole.

Next it flaps, it cries, it gares, 

it rages, it struts, it thrusts

its clacking beak into my liver,

my guts, my heart, rips off strips.

I fill with black blood, black bile.

This may last minutes or days.

Then it lifts sickle-shaped wings,

rises, is gone, leaving a residue --

foul breath, droppings, molted midnight

feathers. And life continues.

And then I'm prey to panic again.

The Panic Bird

Robert Phillips