Crows

 

I think about her pain, the way it settles

on her spine like crows, at first just one,

carelessly crashing in, never quite gets

comfortable and pretty soon the second one

flaps in as if to piss the first one off,

and they’re squawking Fuck you! and Fuck you, too!

at each other, they never get enough

of that, it’s all hello in crow, and two

crows are nothing — soon the whole goddamn flock

is there with their endless complaints, insane

betrayals, grudges. If I throw a rock

at them, will they just go? That kind of pain.

 

                                                 for my mother

 

 

© Michael Fleming

Brattleboro, Vermont

May 2012

 

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