The Lover Speaks About the Crows
My days that first year, marked
by rain and ice, came to an end
too soon after sunrise. The sky
darkened with feathers, their ruckus
in the naked birches like an endless
dispute among small winged gods.
For a time, I thought I hated this.
The cold. Those crows. Belonging
to no one but myself. Each evening,
a plague descended into every bare
limbed tree, and I set off to claim
whatever arms might hold me
til morning. I remember their huddled
silence as I passed. How each night,
they became a single organism,
a shimmering blackness, soft expansion
and contraction, like dark lungs
breathing in and out the night.
AE Hines is the author of Adam in the Garden (Charlotte Lit Press, 2024) and Any Dumb Animal (Main Street Rag, 2021). His poems have been widely published in such journals as The Southern Review, Rattle, The Sun, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, and Alaska Quarterly. His literary criticism can be found in American Poetry Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Rain Taxi, and Northwest Review. He received his MFA from Pacific University. More at www.aehines.net.
