I wrote about hawks once before when they
were nesting and feeding their fledglings.
Now in a time of pandemic, two hawks
have returned to my yard, scattering

mourning doves and sparrows, eliciting
the blue jays’ jeers and dive-bombing crows.
Undaunted, the hawks perch on watchtowers
of pitch pine and oak, sentinels surveying

the hunting grounds below. I am mesmerized,
wanting only to delight in their gaze,
their swiveling heads and gleaming buff breasts,
in something else alive in this fractured world.

They startle me with a hiss and crackle,
staring straight down at me, beaks clacking.
In this time of radical separation,
let them fly at me, raucous and whistling.