The Crow Comes —Down —

The crow on the branches, 

not like a hawk plunging the sky, 

flies down to touch sweat-stained, spit-stained concrete

and dips itself in the smoothly inked puddles, 

scraggled lines that bleed as remnants from the source.

Hopping the hot road, 

twisting its neck, so its tiny shoulder bones rise up, the

whole, round crest of the earth is flat from this view. The

crow that touches the ground 

and juts the bob of its head into cold, grease-spotted paper bags,

that leans against the wires of a rusted shopping cart, that flicks

from studded silver rings 

to plastic rings

because both shine in the sun. 

Smelling the shavings of rubber and the thick of gasoline,

swishing the fan of its tail this way and that, 

the crow jumps the hurdles of human shoes. 

And as slick oil does, 

this crow’s feathers shift in the orange light, 

swaths of purple and blue as though tinted by twilight.

And when the day is finished, 

the crow rises back to the branches 

to watch the cotton clouds drift across the world

and the hungry hawk still circling a receding forest.