Crows roosting for the night
I seem to be on a poetry jag. This is a first draft:
Our town is an extremity,
the northernmost finger
of a swarming city.
The main drag on Saturday night:
the sun at its lowest flings
javelins of red gold light
through maple branches
illuminates the flights
of mosquitoes, dances
of dragonflies, midges on the wing,
drifts of cottonwood fluff, the mating quests
of the tiniest things.
Below them the pavement reeks
of spilled beer, pizza crusts, and wet
cigarette butts. Our young also seek
their mates, flashing dozens of piercings,
tattooed tapestries
on every limb, thumbs drumming
signals on cell phones:
meet me at the brew pub, at the party.
No one wants to be left alone,
rejected. The boom cars,
the backfiring Harleys,
the overamped rap from the bars
grab the street by its nape
and shake it till its ears bleed.
Desperate to escape
we walk to the edge
of our peripheral town and watch crows fly
to roost, blackbirds bed
down in the reeds, abandoning the hunt for bugs
to frogs and bats. A chorus of croaks. A high-pitched squeak,
and the low, low horn of a passing tug.
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