In the city of crows
in the time of autumn,
over the rainy streets the trees
bend and hover like dying grandmothers.
I have been down these streets
on evenings when I did not want to keep living,
and they gave me their susurrations as a balm.
In the city of crows,
a small village where
everyone in the world lives,
I met a woman who was two shadows,
one behind the other but it was a third who spoke.
I saw only one shadow, heard only the words I already knew.
Now there is no woman, and I know less than when I began.
In the city of crows,
by the canal where the
coins turn to fish of white, gold, and black,
my blood turned to cold water, stopping my heart.
An old acquaintance brought a loaf of bread to my side,
still warm from my own oven or so they said. They hit my heart
with the fist that had held the loaf, and I lived again but in their debt.
In the city of crows,
there is no newspaper,
and the devices there die
each year when dusk paints the days.
If you want to see me, listen for weeping
in the forest of shadows, where night and leaves fall alike.
I am there, reciting this poem in a second language made of regret,
shame, love, hope, and death. My body is a wick, time the wax,
and the crows the scattering sly-eyed ash.