Issue 10.2 Spring 2015

10.2 cover image

 

About the Author

John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in Oyez Review, Rockhurst Review and Spindrift with work upcoming in New Plains Review, Big Muddy Review, Willow Review and Louisiana Literature.

 

DEAD CROW

 

John Grey

 

 

Sometimes Rhonda
confuses life with death -
thus the dead crow
limpid on her dresser.

 

Do wounded crows always fall to earth
at a young girl's feet?

 

A chair has legs a bag and a seat.
A wounded crow does not.

 

How is a wounded crow
like structure and function?

 

Must there always be a boy
with a BB gun responsible
or can a crow,
like the rest of us,
harm itself?

 

Some rules nearly always work.
They just don't account for projectiles.

 

What do these birds do
when they're not being shot out of the sky?

 

Everything that occurs
depends on everything else that occurs.
The string of crows on the telephone wire
can see that now.

 

Purposeful definitions include
many things we did not anticipate.
Make us into them by seeing the blood trickle
down the fading black chest.
What we think of as meaning
do not necessarily correspond
with dying birds.

 

What's got no wings,
a barrel, and sets the sky to rights?
The boy Rhonda will someday marry.

 

 

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