just flew inside my chest. Some <br />days it lights inside my brain, <br />but today it's in my bonehouse, <br />rattling ribs like a birdcage. <br /> <br />If I saw it coming, I'd fend it <br />off with machete or baseball bat. <br />Or grab its scrawny hackled neck, <br />wring it like a wet dishrag. <br /> <br />But it approaches from behind. <br />Too late I sense it at my back -- <br />carrion, garbage, excrement. <br />Once inside me it preens, roosts, <br /> <br />vulture on a public utility pole. <br />Next it flaps, it cries, it glares, <br />it rages, it struts, it thrusts <br />its clacking beak into my liver, <br /> <br />my guts, my heart, rips off strips. <br />I fill with black blood, black bile. <br />This may last minutes or days. <br />Then it lifts sickle-shaped wings, <br /> <br />rises, is gone, leaving a residue -- <br />foul breath, droppings, molted midnight <br />feathers. And life continues. <br />And then I'm prey to panic again.<br /><br />Robert Phillips<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-panic-bird/
