As Sirius was panting in the muggy
Dusk, the sun settled itself to rest,
A shaft of pink glinted on the mangled
Beak of a dead body, a crow.
In a nest of powder blue
Forget-me-nots it lay,
While the sky echoed
With mourning caws.
Despairing, angry things.
Contorted in rigor mortis,
Its black body was thick
And teeming with flies.
I wrapped the body
In butcher paper.
Cradling its stiff neck,
In my hands, the wax crinkled.
It felt like a warm thing in my hands,
Like a child or some other innocent carrion
I set it out on the lawn, onyx
eyes unblinking, where, kneeling,
Grasshoppers brushed at my legs
And the fireflies dabbled in morse code.
I crouched and waited for the yellow eyes.
I made a deal with the coyotes.
A bird for some silence.
Futile deal. My tinnitus rings
Everlasting, evertorment.
But I wanted to see their eyes,
Those yellow glowing things.
Like a perverted sun
Had been set in the socket.
To light up the viscera
Of their prey.
Skulls sit on my mantelpiece:
dead things, summer’s leftovers.
It is the cruelest season:
honeysuckle and rot,
ferment and decay.
I dip them in silver but
The coat is patchy and bone
Struggles out. I make necklaces.
I give them away, so my heart
Can have illusory gratitude.
The crows have not stopped shrieking.
Hoarsely demanding retribution.
The sky is black with their wings,
And the air is heady with pollen.
The coyotes keep their word, silent
A pack of dirty fur and canines.
Their eyes gleam yellow
Until sunrise relieves their duties.
Crow//Azrael Fíernen












