Before Dorothy, he fell
in love with a crow.

It spent four days
pecking at the gravel

round his feet, and he
didn’t dare speak,

not even when it turned
one black eye on him,

and, with a noisy
flap, alighted on his

shoulder to pluck
a musty piece of straw

from his left cheek.
So close! He would have

cried but his eyes
were only circles of blue

house paint. When
the crow flew away,

he hoped that a part
of him might be kept

in its nest, woven in
a spiral. Some of his

body, mud-caked
and necessary, cradling

soft fuzz and tender
beaks. He had never

before felt a touch like
that, felt so wanted.

-Morgan Adams