again with the crows in the tree outside my apartment on the line above the bus stop circling over the building where I work. they don't speak to me but I know they're keeping an eye out. when I was a child my father was an idea and not personal, not like my mother who wrapped me in blankets and guilt. he was there, always, if I talked, he talked back but I was awkward and he was awkward. silence seemed the solution.
at the county fair, he came with me on the ferris wheel, mom and tiny sister left below. wind blew around me, caught my hair, my imagination, my wings, sent me flying with a hundred images and nothing to say, just circling around his silence.
I call for the holiday and when I get silent, my mother hands him the phone. we sit like that, breathing at each other, still as strangers. finally my mother thinks of something else I should have done, takes it back, and I realize I prefer honest silence.
the morning when there are no crows is too still.