Heckyll & Jeckyll
By Frank Lima
Crows see us as another invention.
Like summer and beauty,
They shimmer at sunrise in their new cars,
Change their names and color when they see us.
When they fly, they’re the bite marks on the sun,
And nail-scratches of black against the sky.
We matter little to them as we are.
They prefer hamburger, youth,
Oxygen and mineral water.
And, of course, we sell our souls to a passing crow,
Because we’re shiny things they take to heaven.
Crows are always polite to humans.
They have lots of money
And live at a party that never ends.
We’re the junk genes they left behind,
That play Aztec football with our heads,
When we dream and lose.
Crows have relatives everywhere.
Human warfare moves across the sky
Making more room for them to fly.
We’re just a meal in the next world.
We’re the hole in the sky.
Crows are legends and instructors of grace.
They are the dots in the fog,
And the flight of the uterus.
Crows are the printed warnings
Of a wasted life.
They will never leave or abandon us.
When we take our last breath,
Navigating through our mistakes and lies,
The crows will take our last word.
We are the last citizens of a pale race of crows,
Rearranging the furniture in the mind of God.
Crows turn the planet on its axis when we die,
And do nothing to the body we’ll remember.
Our souls are their meal of the day.
And the blue marble in its beak,
As it flies away,
Is the world leaving you.
Source: Poetry (November 2015)