City Epilogue

Look closely at the crows. At 9:00 p.m. the highway ends and hollow appendages of turning headlights pet the tangled shag of the field. Dead-mute, perched in the shush and sigh of wind through brush, at the last turn-off. Background city crest rectangles are switched off safes. Locked in dust, old exploitations. Once this field had no crows. Black women hung diapers off tottering porches. Families lived sandwiched. Splintered door frames, coal clouded windows and crooked bricks. Now the crows are ebony raisins of scrap dinner town where only bricks of blight sunk among the weeds are cataracts in rain. Published Black Buzzard Press - 1982