Three crows
huddling between telephone wires
is not a metaphor. Depravity is exquisite

in the one
huddling between the search
for carrion and the carrion it last remembers,

reminding the others
of carrion: black matted
feathers, eyes falling inward. I want to know

if crows bleed
from their eyes during coition,
how to tell the difference between crow and raven.

Those crows see
our Jupiter, must think it mindless
how we send our probes surfaceward. Send them away,

call them back.
Here are two crows guarding
my sweet basil, watching wasps orbit the one tomato

drooping earthward.
These two crows are exquisite.
They want me to forget about the dumbells hovering

above my head,
to forget about planets.
Two crows call me back from this unpremeditated

meditation
to tell me everything I see
is real save the dark carrion they wait for.

They wait for me
to make a move heavenward
toward them. The sun beats their eyes into mercury.

Depravity
is exquisite. Three crows
reduced to one. One crow to two. One spring

in Italy
the children in the piazza yelled,
Vengono i corvi! The crows are coming. This is how

we learn to love the dark.


Originally appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Fall 2000