in repose—sleek form, disc and stepped cylinder, perfect tapering cone:
lovely lethal latency.
one peck at the shell—blast expels, metal kestrel—
propels—harsh helical tunnel, birth canal,
ballistic birth canal of briefest life—
and sudden death.

rupture the tranquil air, it does—
imperceptibly arc, it will.
the mildest breeze, a caress upon your cheek,
deceives its gyroscopic flight—
a wobble, it induces,
thence a tumble,
and atumble does its quarry strike,
parting fur and hide.
to layered flesh and ordered membrane imparting
churning chaos—
until, upon
some reluctant bone—
it finds repose.