“He smiled at his old boyhood choice, slow oxidation in the top of a tree”

I’d like to believe the reason vultures
refrain from picking out my brain on
the way to work has something to do with
the movement of my heart; that somehow
they’re smart enough to know it still runs
or that they have x-Ray vision or something.
I’d like to think the same applies for wolves and bears,
that they share an understanding—though I’m dying,
something substantially sentient keeps me
distinguished from the dead. I’d like to believe it all
and that I’m not completely fearful admitting
I have no idea what it means to be alive
or why I’m any less appetizing than rotting meat
on the side of the road for something
working inside me…something magical,
unmarkable, without nature, I suppose.