When the Murder Began

When the Murder Began


It is perhaps the most repulsive thing to imagine,
More likely to induce vomiting
   Than an appreciation of their predicament

Yet that’s what they were squawking about,
My not having set the alarm on a Summer Saturday,
  They having roused me now anyway

Too see, maybe, thirteen raucous crows, perching,
All flapping their wings with a cackle and caw
  In the old oak tree across the street

Under the boughs of which lay
The remains of a dead of an Opossum,
   Long since flesh and bone broken out in entrails

Thanks to Friday night revelers
And the early Saturday shift workers not
  Feeling the need to steer anymore

The crows tried repeatedly descending to it,
A claw scratch or a peck, they were risking their necks,
  As always another half-awake car came to drive them away

Pity for crows is not my passion, but then
They could keep this up all day, so
  I stepped out doors, when by rights I should have been

Watching cartoons with coffee, the goal
Of every Baby-Boomer on a Saturday AM, but I
  Got from my pickup my rusted coal shovel

I hand held up traffic while I scraped up that offal corpse,
Risking its stain backstopping with an untied sneaker,
  Then tossed the foul guts, grit and all on the neighbor’s lawn

And THAT was when the murder began