Poem: "Crow in Training"

Wrote this today.


Crow in Training 

condemned so many times/to be a crow

     Claribel Alegría, “Ars Poetica”


The first time the caw-caw surprised me so much
that I dropped it like a burning stick. Second time
I repeated the cry with my head cocked to a side,
to better determine the iridescence of its report.
Just before the third boy fell on his rifle, a bullet
through his eye, I emitted so full and round a call
that the grizzled veterans coughed approvingly.
I counted off my triumphs of the day, seventeen
—there were many of us cadets in the gathering.
 The murder thinks my performance is promising.

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