After the Hurricane

Robin Ray

I name my hurricane ‘Vulture’ after myself
in blatant defiance of the World Meteorological

Organization’s aim to divide the dwindling spoils
between the sheltering flies and me. I glimpse

the mud hollow below. There’s equality in a
tremulous storm. Mansions crumble, rubbles

alongside dumpsters long used to the insult.
My neck is sore, stiffened by the barren pouch

long used as a carrion cage. My back, creased;
legs, cramped. Attempts to sleep on the wooden

skids beneath what was once a confident overpass,
impossible. I’d wished to shed my skin rattlesnake-style

in the office of a Fortune 500 crypto miner, enjoy
what’s left of his caviar, become that crazed fool

stumbling through his temperature-controlled larder.
Now that I’ve scavenged the same bones in the same

detritus, my dreams unfulfilled, can I evolve my
troublesome past? If wishes had wings.

Robin Ray is a writer and musician from the Pacific Northwest of the US. As a poet, his works have appeared in Caribbean Writer, Gargoyle, Hawk & Whippoorwill, Delphinium, Blue Moon, Newtown Literary and elsewhere.