Today's poem is by Jessica Tanck

Pet Crow
       

When I find the crow in the bath,
Alesha says the spirits will follow us forever.
The first horror of presence, of dark clotting

the white-washed tub, and I don't even shriek.
Like the time I stepped out of bed onto a sponge
of carpet, a book floating in water the river pushed

through the door cracks, or when I lifted the sheets
to find our pet fish's bones arranged
in a neat little skeleton, a cat's jigsaw,

or when Father gasped tar into toilet bowl,
pins forced in a cross beneath his belly skin
like Houdini's lockpicks,

I don't panic. Father says there's devil
in my calm, but this is not the only crow.
Under the porch, the first one stretched.

The next, broken on the concrete,
a bloody slash on the bedroom window.
Outside—a coincidence. Inside, no.

Alesha brings me a Walmart bag, watches
as I scoop soaked black feathers
into plastic film.

I can feel its bones,
the creature
beneath the symbol.

It would have made a good pet, I think,
and turn the plastic like a shroud over
its gaping beak. We haven't had a pet

in years— not since the cat went mad.
We bring the crow outside, wanting to bury it
somewhere the light won't see.

We want it to be forgiven.

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Copyright © 2024 Jessica Tanck All rights reserved
from Winter Here
University of Georgia Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission