Jet black pinion juts just off vertical
flutters on the pavement from a clump of
coal — or feathers, jumbled black feathers,
I see now: a crow lying on the road.
No accident this, but cold intent. A rock
— lowbrow tool’s tool, I heard it hit and
flip, followed by the scrambling splat
of the questioning crow, crying on the road.
Talon twitches at the end of a thin inkish
squiggle — and that fierce dark disk tilts,
looks for the explanation, please — a reason;
but there is no why, just dying, on the cold dark road.