Crows

He said John, immediately
the crows appeared.
Not sad, I said, I'm not.

He said, in case of emergency
call. A leaf fell.
We danced until two.
He said he lived over

a truck stop, said,
these particular crows
are trouble's handprint.

I remembered Robert,
before him Michael,
room 208,
wallets on dressers,

in case of emergency
please notify,
the phone rang, black

like crows, sky seeped in,
singed, vagrant.
I don't sing, I said.
I do everything but that.

He said, keep this
in a safe place, said, in case
of emergency.

The fistful of crows flickered,
black, eating holes
in the windows,
a kind of notification,

a kind of emergency,
a kind of slipping away.
And the wallet lay open

on the window,
the glass emptied itself,
a stain in the back
of my throat,

the taste of wet wood.
The windows cracked,
crows flew through

making holes not in the sky,
but in the world.
I said John, I said,
please notify,

there's an emergency.
The crows wheeled
above us, a circular saw.

Copyright © 2006 Deborah Bogen All rights reserved
from Landscape with Silos
Texas Review Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission