Duck in the Sky, Duck on Your Wall

You terrify every mallard in the sky with your promise of murder

Your children richochet off the trees and into the clouds, through the sun,

And back to earth, striking the loneliest bird to the ground for your hounds

For you, it's just another afternoon of gurgling brandy and drunken fun

But for them, it's another afternoon of drawn breaths and sudden deaths

It's not only the ducks but their friends whom your bullet frenzies astound

And not only friends plumed in Eastern American feathers, either---

But men and women like you, if it's not too generous to call you by those sounds.