The Visitors

I have negotiated
with such black rooks

(in our last two homes)

those soot ghosts
trapped in chimneys

most living

less a stiff pair
which

come the summer’s
long release of heat

woke nested flies
finding the window panes

there
made spot-spattered

fly-trapped

those small dark
scavengers
of the dead

The living rooks
were easier to
release