about soft tissues and hard luck, about honey
and the spoon, deflagrations and worthlessness,
I stared out at the pinkening sky on a late afternoon,
at the graceless crows flying south and east

toward what? All day the workmen next door
jack hammering the foundation, and now the crows
had had enough, were heading somewhere milk-soft
and unfrantic. Blastless. Lacking affliction.

Somewhere they could be dilemma-less,
where the night would be the opposite
of barrage—what would that be like?
The crows growing smaller and smaller

until they were a mess of busy gnats,
until they were out of sight. Where had they gone?
Where does the spirit go after a body is char?
I could say they disappeared, but I know that they did not.