Sky Burial

Vulture, follow me up: here is the arm

my mother held me aloft with (as

well as she could, until she couldn’t), it

is cut free of her body now, pulled

away from her shoulder, away

from her breath, as you, Vulture, point

your wing toward her offered heart, toward me — 

let’s pound her fingers into paste, pound the hand

open, come down, I chant, each word opens

the sky, the clouds need to be warned — once

she was hand & now she is wing, once she was dirt &

now she is air, she was food & now she is bird, she was

lifted & now she is gone.