When the rough men gather

The gloaming eaves are touched with the slump
of sunlight. The dark-kazoo drone of crow song
dusks the last light left to see. A bird rows
over the roof burying light then feathering out,
growing into a group of one hundred more. And who knew

these cave-colored birds gathered in mobs
like rough men desperate to revive the old ways. I dread
to look up and see the shining beetles
of their eyes gazing down from a treetop city
of oak. The low bells of their infliction

rising from the tunnels of their throats.

Author's Note

2021