Green Linden Press

Winter with Crows                                                                                               —Will Cordeiro


A field’s hard labor packed;
crows hurdle over dirt
and stubble. Looking back,
the crumbled earth’s inert—

rows turned and picked like wounds.
They huddle for runt seeds
rotting on the ground,
devour and proceed.

As two perch on a plow,
the rest begin to flock—
and each hinged wing foreshadows
days slurred with snow and work.

Vague shimmer of a stand
of far-off trees and farms
is nothing other than
another distant swarm.