Three Poems

Nearing Winter Having lost interest in the changing of seasons Having lost the ability to dance through verb Having seen blackbirds and having little to say about them Having fewer than fourteen lines inside me Having the call of black birds ringing in my ear Having lost perspective on the line break Having handed over the image of blackbird to science Having heard little and spoken much less Having the curtains finally hung, left them closed Having light come through of its own accord Having sharp autumnal light Having little interest in it beyond a spark that sputters Having knotted blackbird's tongue to mine Having lost interest in the changing of seasons   Crow I threw out that poem about the crows and the industrial park. I was wrong about crows. They aren’t metaphors for anything. It’s not just their multiplicity that’s scary, though I just wrote crow to contain the flock. Maybe Hitchcock was reading du Maurier in bed with a handkerchief tucked into his undershirt to catch crumbs when he felt his fear too. In fact, he was wearing a crow suit. He was flapping around madly trying to get into the mind of a crow so the crows in his mind would vacate. He shot crows and then held funerals his dinner guests were obliged to attend. He carried a black quill to sign cheques. When he sat for a self-portrait, a crow was drawn. No, that’s not it. I drove around at sunset in an industrial park where all the city’s Hitchcocks had come to roost. A murder of Hitchcocks flapped their handkerchiefs and threw breadcrumbs at me. I hit the gas and drove back to town not because I was scared but because the sun was falling fast and it was shiny.   Boom Crash Boom Crash Sink beyond commerce to silty grit and not enough history, too much granite. Let the realtors call, and call. Crows in the industrial park— mean faces, just birds. Long before the realtors left they were calling. That sound? Crash. Crash. Just the waves, still. It’s a mass of water, neither housed nor homeless. Stand up. Change slips through your fingers. Pebbles in your pockets. Call me back. Keep walking.