the sweetest hello

early august overcast reminds me of but does not spell rain. alone with whoever may enter, how long since the sky caught & released something besides shine? berries appear like a box of clothes, abandoned on a corner, waiting to be picked. spontaneous sweetness awaits you. i pull the clouds over my head & drowsily tumble down the steps, hooded. i am asked for a story which i don't have & feel around in the pockets of memory for enough shattered calcium fragments, floating there in the slick, to shell something soft & personal to give them. but can you really trust met flesh, as if no one has ever lied to your face, your heart, or your belly? what will the unborn know of you that the crows don't? stray morning kitten, tiger in training, friends me on the sidewalk beside the raspberry bush. collarless & sweet but does not cross to other side with me, where i find a crow, crouching on the pavement, its wings tucked in, head lifted, beak open as if it meant to say something it could not say to the barking wire above. i look up at the crow that's been barking nonstop, like a knocked down boxer's trainer in the corner, yelling at him to get back up. i turn to leave, not wanting to interrupt whatever has to happen, when i notice the other crow, watching in silence several feet down the wire. i nod to the one who knows & continue toward whatever awaits me. as i enter the circle, a beautiful woman from work who worries me, walking around with her head down, as if crouching inside herself, rounds the curve on her bicycle & startles me with the sweetest hello.