Lisa Marie Oliver
TWO CROWS
They perch in the branches of the black cherry. I feed them daily.
One has a white feather in his breast. He’s often the lookout,
only swooping down after the other has already eaten.
I call him Brave One. The winter after my lover dies, he watches me
with too much understanding. The other crow is missing a tail feather.
I call her Tenderheart. But I don’t have a favorite.
Sometimes we are the sentinel and sometimes we are the guarded.
Sometimes we squall from a place where there are only night birds.
Or only winter. Sometimes we are in the frame and sometimes we are out.
Eventually, I will cut my image carefully from the photo on the mantle.
I only want to remember him, not me and him, my jaw niched in his collarbone,
the ocean behind us, sand dashed with gulls.
Two crows in a storm. One is the watcher. One is the companion.
One swoops down.
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