Eaten by beauty

Dominican Republic

The yellow-crowned night heron
Plucks the land crab
Inching from its burrow,

Cracks its red shell
To pick with whetted beak
The shredded innards.

The heron’s plumed skull
Shaded gray and black
Seems rendered by Caravaggio.

How holy to be eaten by beauty,
Or to scuttle
Under a thistle to pinch

The green and blue
Iridescent beetle
And allow beauty to inhabit you.