Crow, today you answer, rising in the gray
of slender branches, calling me back

to the dying season.  In the half-dark of dusk,
an edge of light on the horizon, you shift from red

to gold a demon whose answer sends
snow off the boughs of a willow, all sense crashing;

an omen that breaks the steady gray of winter.
And only you hear the madness on my tongue,

as I chant to the dead squirrel: rise up, go away!
the edge of your beak shining as you pull

her open.  You bury yourself in the breast
before the car is a block gone.  A red trail

drags behind as you pull your find to the curb.
I could crush you with my knee, smash the slender

throat as you tilt your head back and swallow.
I'd like to rip your black tongue loose,

free you from your racket of cracking bones.
You have beaten the vultures to a crude

ending, sent a tremble over my lips
as the sun sets its last rays on the top

of a maple, softening the glow of scarlet
against the squirrel's brown coat.

No, I don't forgive your feast, but accept
this rush of life towards death.

I, too, would steal the jewels off a dead man,
gaze into his silent face for that last look—

I believe I am among the living.  So circle
my head if you will, black bird,

I know I am no better than your feast,
than your marble eye tilting towards me,

and no amount of clothing will save
me, or cover the flush of recognition spreading

on my cheeks when the last cool eye of the squirrel
dances down your throat.  It is good to know

we eat each other in broad daylight,
in my neighborhood.

_________________________________________________________________________

AMBER FLORA THOMAS earned her MFA at Washington University in St. Louis, MO.  She coauthored Places Not Far From Here, a chapbook published by Bucknell University Press.  Her work has also been published in a number of small journals and magazines, such as Common Lives, Women of the Moon, and In Your Face.

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