Hawk

The hawk on the wire faces away from the road, but looks back at me over his shoulder.  That posture is, by now, an icon of the large raptors:  the curved neck, the eye and beak somehow more forceful because twisted back toward us.   “I will regard you, but not seriously enough to turn my body.   I point my glorious beak in your general direction.  I may turn toward you but I may not.  I can see more of you than you can of me, and I am studying your nostrils for any quiver of fear.  I am Hawk.”