From the first tentative tap
of soft-taloned infant hands
against the inside of the eggshell,

to the soft, downy grey feathers
that keep the infant warm
in the nest against the barren rocks,

to the voracious, gaping mouth,
that opens, begging to be fed
gobbets of meat dropped

pre-chewed, yet still red and stringy
from the mother harpy’s mouth
(best not to ask where she hunted,

where she scavenged the raw and bleeding flesh,
to what creature or being
it once belonged)

the infant is a study in contrasts—
the soft roundness of its infant human body,
the jagged, ragged row of infant teeth

in its red-stained mouth,
the newly-hardened black talons upon its
pudgy human hands;

but its eyes, those belong to a hawk
predatory and cold,
announcing to the world

that this infant will grow up to hunt,
will course the skies in pursuit of prey,
will become what men fear in themselves—

a monster
without conscience
and no consciousness of evil.