I awoke this morning to the rumbling sound
of a crow rolling a bone on the flat-top roof
outside my window.
                                From her routine
rounds above the house this genius saw
that I was sleeping, at least not moving,
behind the screen.
                             Safe for the time being,
long enough for touching down and picking
the joint’s luscious marrow.
                                            Such a gutsy
hungry bird with a constant smile that said,
“Did you hear the one about the man in an open
field?”
           “No,” I said inside my dream,
because I was also dreaming this.
                                                     She never
told the answer, as if this funny answer
were plain enough to every brilliant creature.
The sound of laughter filled the trees across
the yard.
              She risked her life for a taste of fat.
“But oh what a taste!” she cawed to the ranks
of other crows on lofty branches.
                                                     “Oh taste and see!”
No murder this morning across the sky but early
waking to a clown in love with a bone.
                                                              She waited
for my lids to cock my eyes without a click,
then blink, and when they did she raised her wings
in flight to speak, “He isn’t real you know.”