I look out the kitchen window at the slanting light

that gilds all the shrubs and trees in the yard.

Tangerine clouds drift like schooners in the indigo sky.

A sudden clamorous cawing of crows calls me

to go outside where my like-minded neighbors

 

join me at the fence. We look up at a long row of black birds

strung close together on a telephone wire.

There’s not a single crumpled feather among them. I imagine

they can see themselves in the smooth sheen of their pals, their

beaks filled with dark song. One of them lets loose a singular caw!

 

like some horny housewife who wants to burn the restaurant

down because her husband goes there every day, because

he sleeps after tv each night so he can wake up all fresh

when he leaves again at dawn. A woman can be

jealous of bricks and ovens and crows who seldom

 

talk about restaurants or buildings because they never go inside.

My neighbors and I can tell the crows enjoy a strong wire

like this one they can safely perch on, where they won’t get

torched the second they touch down, despite the clamor

of voices that pass through their coiled claws.