You rambled our oyster-shell roads
by foot and bike, rain jacket always open
to the wind, a pack of rib-thin dogs
your only company.
Once, you told me you found a crow
that had fallen from its nest
on the dry-needled ground behind
our house.
I never doubted your story,
wasn’t old enough to understand
the Hail Mary scramble
we all can take
toward any kind of warm.
But after you called our Mother
and said you had a gun
and were planning to use it,
I thought of your
kid-shinny climb toward
a different blue-black heat—
how you held those warm wings
between thin skin and thin shirt,
how you gathered
your own feathered hope
to lift you
beyond the bone-deep gray
of our small bay.
 

—Carey Taylor

Poet’s Website

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