The Boy Named Crow

Nakata stops by my house today

He opens the door cautiously and with apparent dismay.

“I have brought you a poem” he says

He waddles in my kitchen

Eyes my oven mitts and the embroidered flowers I have stitched in

“Your cat writes poetry” he says. 

I soundlessly utter thank you. 

 Here is the poem:

I rose today for the girl and The Boy Named Crow

Threadbare morning, all I saw

Were the oak floorboards that decried demarcation 

In this town of eternal transience who received victims by train.

My tongue sloppily scooped water from a porcelain bowl

She looked down at me 

Bloodied Johnnie Walker opaque and perched on her frail shoulders

Straw top hat, red petticoat and salivating smile

Had he not enough souls to eat? 

The Boy Named Crow 

Stands for “in reaping one shall sow”

The shadows that waltzed

Behind the girl on the drywall

Coughed black feathers, a yellow beak

The Boy Named Crow 

He sinks himself into my sleep

I dream of tuna tides

Salty salmon seas

Whitefish waves

And just as I am about to swim

Senses readied to jump in 

A black feather lands on my forehead

I try to ignore it

But it inches its way into me

Soon stretches the surface of the sea

And my eyes open

The Boy Named Crow presses his forehead into mine

I see my girl has a daughter

Who left after her father caught her

She has barnacle hands

And stringy almond hair

Yet she is woefully unaware 

Of the boy beside her. 

My girl is alone now

At night I curl into her shaky shoulders

And listen to her forfeited heartbeats

We watch our fickle moons wax and wane

Craters fill with bright milk

Our waves of warmth find ways to greet each other

I suppose this is contentment.