Crow Feed

for Miss H

I deleted all of your emails
after printing them. I was going to
shred them, flush them down the toilet,
but I left them in the attic instead.

Through a broken window, a
crow sneaked in and began eating up your words.
the sweeter ones, sweet as molasses-
he just gobbled them up.
His favorite word was "much."

He started to coo at night
and he sang some of the most beautiful boleros
to the lady birds nearby.

"Keep it down," 
my neighbor Pat started to yell.
But how could he stand still
when the poor thing was so full of it?

I don't have the courage to tell him
once he's eaten everything, there won't be any more.
They're done, they're gone, they're never coming back.


He'll feel embarrassed for a while,
until everything gets regurgitated on the sidewalk.

(or at least that's how it went for me...)