The Crow-Mother Tells All

The empty oil drums rattled in the yard

that day in Scranton, and the ham-red hills

would shudder in the distance, thunder-chilled.

My mother shucked a dozen ears of corn,

feeding me stories of the swoop and killings

I could say by heart and still can say.

She hovered in the dust-light, railed

as porch lamps flickered and the power failed,

but not in her. The boom-and-tingle of the storm

was half by her imagined. Hanging on the hard

wings of her apron, always in her sway,

I listened as the green ears all were torn,

her face by lightning cracked and clawed,

her laughter tumbling, beaked and cawed.