Vulture
~Michael R. Collings

Or perhaps vulture
(as my son avers

although he reclined
half-sleeping when

the black shadow
rose, soused

as if to clutch
with careful claw

my small Ford,
and disappeared

above the tunnel’s
mouth) – flash

of red-on-black
glint of hooked

beak but mostly
bulk and blackly

ominous shade
whispers death

and rises as I pass
into darkness