Dauntless black
crow, I studied
you for ages
every day clinging
to these
powerlines by the cement wall
which constantly
sway and moan
with the incessant rush of traffic
from a rude-
ly adjacent John F.
Kennedy Expressway.
Passing by this
same old way
today, it feels like it's been years
since I first came to suspect
what each
of your subtle
and practiced compensatory
movements was for—the littlest
flick, the large and slow
flap, the long and thick
shudder, like some brazenly deliberate
challenge to the invisible—and yet,
I can still
only wish I understood—what each
movement meant.
