1997 Winner Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry"A quest, not for fickle happiness, whose pursuit is unworthy, but joy, more durable and much harder won."—Robert A. Fink"A wild, wild ride. Fierce and chancy, passionate and bawdy, Margaret Benbow's exuberant first book is nothing short of rapturous, enrapturing. . . . She's drawn to the hot, the dangerous, the lush, the profuse. Given the choice of angel or bogeyman, she'll take the bogeyman every time."—Ronald Wallace How to Tell a Bird of PreyGirls weighing less than a hundred pounds,girls who look as though they were raised onmilk veal and summer wine,can chew down through the roofand devour whole families. This one wantsthe man: rank and sexy as an old bobcat.She likes his face, that mess of big prize vegetableswith rooty beard and spud chin, red onion cheeksand hot toad tongue: Wonderful things might happen,she reflects, if I kiss a toad.She doesn't see his nose,that crackbrain crackheart beak.She doesn't mark his gaze,beautiful blood in the raptor's eye.