Out Here Even Crows Commit Suicide

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. Only a stray hunter saw it. Shook his head once thinking it a trick of wind and wing then turned his eyes north to search for the simple flight of Brant or Canadian. Those patterns he could easily understand. That last night they drank from the river. Sucked its delicate cusps of mold sang anti social songs as if they were humans. When he flicked his handsome head to catch the drift of wind she even managed a single tear. She waited through days and nights of grief. Circled the city less then settled on the wires. The metallic conductor captured her eyes. She remembered how he proudly sang her name as he pranced from pole-top to KV line. One last fluff of feathers. One sigh for all the unnested summers. One single scratch one electrical surge of power of love. Then she fell smiling. A trick he had taught her.