Golden eagle with transmitter

After the unasked-for grooming by that mob of wingless birds, their strange soft claws reaching deep under my feathers, they let me go. The rock field dropped away & I thought for a moment it was over.

But I still feel that fleshy insinuation across my breast. And something rides me, a small weight, the same way I ride this snake of wind.

What kind of clutching doesn’t still the heart? Its unshakeable presence makes me know myself apart from beak & talons as a thing that throbs, a thing that chafes & pulses here here here here, the mountains circling below.