This dark-feathered bird
with a smoker’s leathery
voice perches on a wire.
It searches the horizon.
It coughs out ceaselessly
a mocking squawk—you
interpret it as a cosmic
joker, imploring Why?
Why have you left so much
bright tinsel for me to forage?
Wind refuses to answer.
You stay silent. Blizzards
of garbage tumble by…
Crow’s cold eye flashes
lizard gold. A cellphone
tower’s been disguised as
a lumbering palm tree.
Flowers by the highway
melt into plastic. Clouds
spawn from the throats
of factories like tumors.
Now the bird ruminates
upon the sun-foiled slop
by a dumpster. God will
provide for the sparrow;
trash sprawls out for crow.
When it wings off, the bird
you mistook for a prophet
gossips to the cut-open sky,
numbering a clamorous flock.
Header photograph © Henry Brown.