My child makes a clock face
With feathers for hands.
She’s learning how to tell time.
She’ll learn soon enough.
A crow lands by the road.
The sun shines on his back.
He has a rainbow in his black,
An idea in his eye.
He picks up my soul and then he flies.
He has a cache in the woods,
Hidden in a tree, filled with glinting,
Glittery things: a watch left
On a car roof, slipped off, then up,
While the owner soaped the whitewalls;
A little girl’s hair-bow; a scrap of foil;
A strand of your lover’s young hair.
Also in this tree, the crow caught a question:
How do you identify your brother’s body?
By his thumb, bent like his father’s before him.
Also in this tree is Dylan’s old voice.
The Baptists assure me the unseen world
Is what matters. My heart beats like a wing.
Jesus, they say, but I don’t
Even know what they mean.