Northwest at Raven

The Suburbanite Speaks of Crows
Jeannine Hall Gailey

I.

My grandpa always said not to shoot a crow

unless you can kill it on the first shot.

They always remember.

II.

Luckily, we were walking slowly down Post Alley,

it was chilly for August that afternoon,

and we stopped for an instant

to gaze greedily into the steamy windows of

one of those clichéd Seattle coffee shops

and then, out of the corner of my eye

I saw the swoop and shadow and claw, and held

my brother back with my arm

just as a hulking crow sent a missile with virulent aim

crashing just where we would have stepped –

a jagged green half-bottle shattered on the pavement.

I said, how did a crow carry that big piece of glass,

and my brother said, that crow was trying to kill us!

And we turned to one another and laughed and said,

this must happen all the time in the city.

Just the same, we eyed all crows perching at intersections

or wandering the parking lots of grocery stores with suspicion

for months after that.