The Real Event

–For Linda Hogan



By Marge Piercy

 At that conference we were required 
 all us poets and novelists, to give 
 a quasi-academic lecture of pure shit 
 served up as blanc mange. I cannot 
 remember what wan jargon I mewed 
 or what anyone else spewed, dense, 
 earnest, boring as mouthfuls of sand 
 but you I remember with clarity 
 not your lecture, but that because 
 you were working with wounded 
 raptors, you brought a red tailed 
 hawk, huge, female, perched 
 on your wrist glaring at us 
 with eyes of furious topaz. 
 She was molting. As she 
 groomed herself a feather 
 precise as an obsidian knife 
 and delicate as babyhair 
 floated into the audience 
 and I grabbed it. Great 
 wings stretched out; she 
 shrieked. You calmed her 
 and she settled. That vision 
 imprinted my eyes like black sun.