charcoal feathers slicked back to shine, leather jacketed crows, gather like commas on a blank page of pavement, like compact oil slicks that somehow congealed into the shapes of birds. they are the starless words I could not find, haunted by feathered wraiths of jittery ink. I watch them push the one pigeon among them from the plaid pantry’s parking lot. this morning is not Monday though it certainly is moonless. the sky lingers just above like a tube of ash about to be tipped. I pause outside the door conspicuously holding a bright pink carton of half & half. Across the street, there is a martial arts studio with a petite square sign in neon that could read, if you were almost looking, “northwest academy of infernal arts.” Alongside, a row of nearly leafless trees, finally reveal the wire mesh that suspends their plume. They are upside-down hearts, thickly veined with reaching, in desperate slow-motion, not to finally arrive. Growing until the dying, that we always do, overtakes the reaching. Will you know when you are in that lane? Hunched inside as if hiding from what looks, you clenched yourself into the tightest shape that could roll, summoning the cracked pieces of shell that lay, scattered all around you, retreating deeply into winter. Could you die enough again to become once more? Do you die any faster when you try to stay? The all but bare branches sporadically tinkle with crisp dull diamonds, as if the wind were too restless to pluck them all and found some other land to lick, as if the tree couldn’t finish its crying, saving a few tears for the darkest night of December. The leaves are the color of faded gold. They are what’s left of the color in my neighborhood, as if color had been ordered to evacuate. Same as the neon sign that does not blink. Same as the numerals on the bus that comes for me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-uEjO9zfbc
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