crow's song

I look forward, towards the falling music,
towards the song that breaks
the blue from the morning, towards
the sound that chases the bright
out of the window glass. Thieves’ throats open--
with black wings they sing like
the laughter of a ghost ship’s crew and
that barbed tune steals that small
prize: the fool’s promise that everything is fine.

We reap the convenient, white if it is snow,
red if it is too much sun. We hold fortunes
of seizure, stun and stroke. All of our jokes
wander into town without home or
remembered name. They leave us without home or
the thanks of laughter. We kiss murder
then blubber and drool spare our lives.
Everything is outside. The music crashes in,

throwing bolts through the church glass of another
blessed dawn and a sound opens and shreds
our warmth. The crow sings and the sworn oaths
shrivel, bunching up in clumps of cooling words.
The crow sings and laws drop cold Latin dead.
The crow sings and we know suddenly we are
enemies, naked in love and regret. I look forward
to landing when the icarus dreams land me
face first in a shock of birth and bed.
The crow sings, cleaning our bones.