the crow calls closer

It is in the way the crow calls in the distance, gathering clique and kin. It is the way the soft blue sky is pieced and parted by leaf and branch, a puzzle to ponder and nudge. The day again ends, the sun all giddy up and go against the glowing west. The blind dog walks in circles, all bump and muzzle. The gray skips a few shades to paint the streets, a crow grazes it’s wings in the dip of sunlight and the permeable blue above a house. The crow calls closer, still saving up for the night’s flight home.

The atmosphere shifts gears quick, the sun in retreat, the retread of old eyes working the read. The joints begin their chatter, aches opening through the map of the meat. Cold fingers tapping at the screen, the startle of a crushed fast food cup reporting from the street below. Traffic passes, engines rev and tires whisper, the tarmac read aloud by the restless rubber. The bones catch their breath and carry on, anchoring the fickle blood and breath in their ceaseless sojourns. Steam and stones and this sloppy solitary. My heart calls out with the night coming on.

Show me a sign, give me the word, leave me a little luck or loot. A grace to fold the night around. A blessing that sleeps over. Neighbors walk their dogs past while Gilda dances growling at the fence, a bone in her teeth. No play, no respite, no words worth the sharing. The world turns, the sun slips away. I say it so it was said. I say it in case we are together in some expired never. Whim and want, the dusk fills in the rest. Street and tree and negative space. This fire plain to see.