BRUISE

All black, a hard dark

spot, it sits in the tree's

bare arms. Caw! Caw!

it calls to no one.

Again, too rude: Caw!

The truth is out:

it eats dead things.

It knows that want

can make, unmake

a world as much as love,

love's awful opposite.

And so, once more,

the terrible syllable: Caw!

And then it lifts

its wings and flies

into a world diffuse,

green, and blameless,

leaving a bright spot

of nothing where it sat.

One oily feather

in slow free fall,

a bruised blue-black

iridescence,

is all that's left.

But still I hear it: Caw!

An ugly crow perched

in the charred chest

has left, knowing,

what does it know?

That the word

at the bottom of

the world is black.

I will not say it,

but pray that crow

Structure

34 lines · 1 stanza