An eagle rode beside me today
on that great American
North-South highway.
His feathers were
not feathers at all,
but fleshy human fingers,
disgusting fingers,
which held
a round dead world.
He looked into my little car;
he saw me.
His sharp yellow beak smiled,
and his eyes gleamed black
in the sunshine of the
autumn East Coast afternoon.
He wanted me to have it.
He offered up the dead world to me.
I had no choice but to take it-
you cannot argue with an eagle-
and I put it in the glove box.
It waits there for some small change.
The round dead world will wait there forever.