The Magpie

The Magpies bullet black looks are fired too close for comfort.
Empty shells runny with the flesh of birds, a masked avenger
up to his nape in red breast. Cutting down the Christmas card
population, mans clichéd nature gutted. He preens the edge
of his black hat, ties the Wren to the barbed wire tracks and glides
off across the pampered lawn, Rathbone to our Errol Flynn. While
the family cat circles, feathers jammed in the gears of her whiskers,
teeth filled with Magpie shells and the dazzling scalps of Robins.


John G. Hall