Brute Beauty Poem by Dónall Dempsey

You explain
in deadly earnest

how the talons
of a bird of prey works

that once locked into
whatever it attacks

the talons have to meet
and touch before
they can be released

so you have to let them sink through
before attempting escape

from its deadly mechanism.

The scar on your left hand
bears witness.

My mind listens
to such explanations

and often bears the pain
of your heartless actions

that clutch and claw and
sink in

only to release again.

The scars on my mind
bearing witness.