Their work is a helix
of holding patterns
A vexed blackhead on
a narrowing radar
Making no sense
to us
Look across its eyes
at your broken reflection
Pass over its light speed
of thinking centrifuges
Be left behind
on our side of thought
We are not quick enough
to read their flight plans
We are fixed lives –
we are their filth givers
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
