The 2River View 15.4 (Summer 2011)
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Chris Crittenden

Crow In A Gale

splotch
of disheveled tufts
on a catapult
about to throw,

the projectile
quilled yet frozen,
cinched by wind,

a talon
from hurtling
through a sky of cement
and oatmeal.

hood ornament
onyx
of a streamlined grove,

pitted against
a sharpened speed
of drooling gray.

a plight nearly fumes.
almost a serif
marauding.

Ghost Trance

fire ants lick
but he won't burn, not after
decaying off day by year.

he's a scaffold
where issues were hung
and the executioner
forgot to take them down.

dew for a weep,
a clutch of nettle for skin.
once a puff adder
became an arm, another time
a heron.

he judges all
from his bench of finished life,
sparing only
an ichneumon's wing.

green and rot
kiss like horny teens
while he ages with the swamp—

decades
of skull-backed moths
and smitten loons.

Chris Crittenden writes in a Maine spruce forest, fifty miles from the nearest traffic light. He is widely published, and blogs as Owl Who Laughs. contact

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