Crows
by B.J. Buckley

I’ve been communing
with the cheerful raucous crows
who gather and disperse
their flap and clatter
peripatetic through the town,
favoring the old neighborhoods
with their stately trees
and lawns, or the parks
where, despite our cloistering,
scraps are still to be had,
as well as the odd shiny thing
revealed by snowmelt–broken
necklace, earring dropped
in the haste to make room
for a kiss, or a secret
voice–blue-black
iridescent fire
burning in the bushes,
calculating eye, some of them
see me coming, mob me
in the muddy grass
as if I were their long-lost–
and I am:
they, my dark shepherds,
I, their prodigal,
their errant lamb.



Previously published in Poetry Breakfast, July 2023.



 

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