Breadcrumb #531

YOUSSEF ALAOUI

Deadly thing, I am absorbed.
Numbing florals infiltrate
my nostrils, a lullaby gloom.

Late summer closes overhead.
Deep sun past my eyelids
my veins throb, then shut.

At last we are one, you and I.
At last we dance like
Macbeth’s suckling worms.

Crows bellow in the eaves.
Somewhere beyond my universe
they take flight and spiral down.

Their feathers, a deaf chorus.
Beak the last of me, dressed
in late summer lawn.

We cruise the skies.
Past fields of war dead
forgotten droves, mangled leaves.

Past dead cities.
Snow flurries among ruins
erasing memory, adversaries tired.

Over deadly things.
I am absorbed in the crow’s belly
safely hid from thundering storms.

I am forced further and higher
before I escape with a careless grunt
to flower in the soil.

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