"Out Here Even Crows Commit Suicide," by Colleen J. McElroy

[lonelybusiness.livejournal.com]

Out Here Even Crows Commit Suicide
--Colleen J. McElroy

In a world where all the heroes
are pilots with voices like God
he brought her a strand of some woman’s

hair to wear on her wing.
She looked sideways at the ground
silent behind the cloudy film covering

her eyes knowing she would be his
forever. They cruised the city nights
each one spiralling away from the other

but always coming home to gather stories.
Dark streets bright tavern lights drunks
filled with beer in the gutters.

The flicker of stars shaped like a hunter’s
arrow bent stars that twinkled like babies’
eyes. No babies for them. She was an outcast.

He a loner. A perfect pair.
Winters had made him wise
and he avoided the single nests of summer.

He told her about things she could see.
How the dismal cover of clouds roils and explodes
and the ground aches like an old woman’s knee.

How wood rots against the tide
good for hunting grub.
How to fade and fall back into the wind.

He translated her pulse
into near-language. Their poetry so personal
even Peterson’s Field Guide could not tap it.

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