No matter how fast we drive we can’t shake the crows picking at the trash in the back of the truck. Crap once so whole and important and yet now so hastily trundled to the dump before fines can be levied or eyebrows raised. The crows blithely peck and shred as we speed and the holes in the bags get larger and the crap begins to spill up into the slip stream like stunned dialogue bubbles from body bags and it’s humiliating, both for the crap that remains at home and the crap carted away. Slipping into the skein of wind are more nodding photos from the coast no one storms anymore, 20+ poems about naptime and a fidgety short story about a fellatrix; plus that lone commissioned piece, from the woman who said that a series of black and white photos of live alders might remind her of her now-buried daughter, which was paid for but never picked up. Like an adjunct to the funeral she paid for but could not attend.
The crows numbers compound and finally we pull over and flat out run, stooped and laughing and cursing; yet the crows ignore us and dig and reckon wrongly in their weighting numbers that something good must fester towards the bottom of it all.