He doesn't love anyone or anything. Except the kestrel 
jessed on his leather-gloved left hand. 

She's his, and to live, each day, she must kill.
Whatever she finds when the boy flies her—vole, 

sparrow, mouse—she presents to him as trophies.
Then gripping with her dark talons, she uses her

sickle-beak to probe brain and liver, to eat them
before she dismembers and picks pink

flesh from delicate white bones. The boy is
too weak to kill, yet watch he must. Her triumph, 

her skill, her pleasure make him hard, so as she 
eats, he slowly does himself.

This: their ritual. They are coupled. Their love real.
And, every day as she stares into his eyes, 

he whispers, Take me. Eat my heart. Clean my bones.