I Told the Crows

      

I didn’t sharpen a blade.

I sharpened a sentence,

let it worry my mouth for days,

then released it the way smoke finds every crack in a house

no matter how carefully the doors are shut.

The crows were already listening -

they always are -

black commas along the power lines,

punctuating the afternoon,

waiting.

I told them what you did.

Not loudly.

Truth doesn’t need volume.

It only needs wings.

One of them clicked its beak against the streetlight -

metal on metal -

a sound like a lock deciding.

They tilted their heads,

that old, judicial angle,

as if measuring the exact distance

between your front door

and the sky.

This isn’t revenge.

It’s ecology.

You mistook silence for mercy,

and mercy for forgetfulness,

as if harm were a private matter

instead of something that travels,

something that teaches itself to be repeated.

Now the morning practices your name

in a harsher alphabet.

Now shadows lift off trash cans

and learn your schedule.

I won’t be there.

I don’t need to be.

So go ahead -

grab your keys,

open the door.

GBS jr

2023