WELL DONE! Poetry BUZZARDS by David Malone

They say the evil twists beneath the house,

with a rotten root that rears upward

through the cratered fireplace.

After all, how do you explain

the murder in ’79, the kitchen fire

in ’86, and the kidnapped boys

back in ’55 when nothing like that ever happened?

The Monday morning after Halloween

proves it again: in the street

an opossum rests

mostly tail and head

though she tried to drag herself

back home into the pines.

A breeze delivers the scent of death

mixed with the mealy smell of fallen leaves,

and the buzzards feast on what remains.

Spooked when a lanky jogger passes,

the vultures lift up as one—

synchronized swimmers

in the blue sky. They float

into the five-story pines,

dive into the dark skyward branches,

and wait together at the edge.

“Buzzards” originally appeared in The Heartland Review as the 2nd place award winner in the 2022 Joy Bale Boone Prize. The poem is also included in Bypass (Aldrich Press 2023).

Dave Malone holds degrees from Ottawa University and Indiana State. He is a poet and screenwriter who lives in the Missouri Ozarks, and his most recent poetry book is Bypass (Aldrich Press, 2023). He can be found online at davemalone.net or on Instagram @dave.malone.