Promptly Poetry Entries (6/20 - 6/21)

A Crow's Just a Punk in a Black Feather Jacket

It was once one of nature’s nocturnal creatures -
Not one of the noble animals of the forest, no
Not one ever described in hushed whispers
In a TV special with David Attenborough -
Likely, it was one of nature’s criminal creatures
Perhaps, having tired of rummaging and trying to pry
The lids off the neighbor’s locked trash cans.
It decided to try its luck across the road

Let me just interject that this was a bad decision

And despite using the crosswalk, was flattened.
A bag of skin spread long and wide and
For a memorial banner, only the long fur
Of its tail being waved by the morning breeze.
And as my car rumbled toward it,
I slowed at the fading white border lines,
And met the steely gaze of a crow.
Whose carrion this poor, flat creature now was.

In a crosswalk, the crow has the right of way

Not desiring to flatten any more living things,
I slowed the car to a crawl, honked to give
The crow good warning and time to move.
“Caw!” he replied, with no wavering of the eye.
“Move!” I shouted in a voice that would
Alarm the average avian. Honk! I pressed the horn.
“Caw!” said the crow with defiance,
Keeping his guard over his flat meal

Crows remember human faces, I remembered

So I ceased my raucous replies to the corvid,
And swinging my wheels just a tad to the right,
Showed him that I was not in competition,
For his precious, putrefying prize.
Rolling by at a reassuring distance, however,
Did not assure the crow of dinner for one,
For several compatriots joined,
Each cawing out a piece for himself.

A stain on the crosswalk was all that was left


Written for:
Promptly Poetry
Week 4 - June 22
Imagine a scene or a moment
in a pedestrian crosswalk