Cursing and stabbing, a murder of crows
high up in the black cage of trees.
A cab draws up. I get in; a sick, old dog,
a Grimm foundling, wrapped in a rug.
At the vet’s, I harden my heart. Difficult.
Then a text from an Ex wanting to meet. Delete.
*
I walk home dazed; ashes signed for and paid.
Next thing I know, I’m back, my own shade.
By the breadboard, three grains of black rice.
Hours later, I divine their meaning. Mice.
There are deadlines, so work seems best.
Stare at the stumped garden; sit at the desk.
*
The sky changes hue; goose, heron.
Only a robin has colour; its hurt burn
in the empty grate of the hedge, small
as pauper’s found coal.
And no sound; stillness bearing the sky’s freight;
gloom thumbed from charcoal, fraught.
*
Whose bad idea was language? It is a veil
over the face of God; does not reveal.
But I persist, making connections. A frail moth
dies on the windowsill. Virginia Woolf.
Scarce seven hours, the short day bleeds out:
the robin empties the song from its throat.