Crows Overhead

Before All Soul’s Eve

- it’s ether, it’s queer
and then, at last, it’s done. Now the scavengers arrive.
Imitations Of Drowning, Ann Sexton

a murder of memories
- black, cawing and ready

to boldly gut
that which the predators have

already taken

down - flapping.
Recollections

project themselves
onto the landscape screen.

trees are

not tired, sultry
or lascivious.

yes, they are. gold,
red, orange invitations

to collect again the falling

pieces of life. gathered
to seal between

ironed wax paper;
raked then bagged like victims

or scattered, swept away

by random winds.
never predictable -

cooling the morning,
freezing the afternoon,

heating the night -

except when bearing a floating
screeching change

and those handsome men
on television.