My Father Died at Seventy-Four

and my mother buried him at the Waynesville cemetery in a double plot 
with a pair of tombstones, one for him and an unmarked slab waiting 
for her, and my father became a crow in the red maple behind the house 
in Hazelwood, and my mother lived another thirty years and waited 
for the day when she would lay down again with my old man. And sometimes 
my father would call her and sometimes she would pack a picnic lunch 
and sit outside sharing a pb & j and a slice of Dad's favorite cherry pie. 
And often, she would be scolded with a caw from the telephone line running 
to the back of the kitchen. And she didn't mind when my father stole 
the seeds for the smaller birds she kept in the bird-feeder hanging 
from the maple all winter long. And finally, when she was ninety-four, 
she fell unloading groceries from her car and hit her head on the concrete 
floor of her kitchen. After a few months in the hospital, she decided 
it was time to relocate, so she became a crow and joined my father 
in the red maple behind the house in Hazelwood, and her name became etched 
on the other stone in the double plot in the cemetery down in Waynesville.


(First published in Port Crow Press - 2024)