Crows clot in a winter garden
crowding, trading side-eyes, carping.
Parlous clouds the colors of fresh bruising
spill over distant drumlins into a soft white sky,
the horizon soon eclipsed, heaven’s weight.

The vicar’s widow back hunched,
the effect is of a Grimm’s dwarf, she picks flowers
but just the black ones, long brittle
by winter’s wind and frosts, her wicker trug
fills with boutonnieres for the damned, as she
hums, clears her throat, hums, and
hums, clears her throat, hums.

Jordy the butcher’s dog, sour and three-legged,
barks rhythmically at the edge of the old well
as children toss rotted apples to the girl who fell in
back in ‘37, chanting Mary Dell fell in the well…

So it is with dark prophecy, arriving like a
visitation without zeal or relish or accusation,
but there is accuracy, ineluctable accuracy.