It's Still Life

There’s a magpie walking around the garden with an apple core in its mouth – sounds like a wire of wind within its throat. Yesterday, there were two crows fighting over a bone bigger than they were long, both in moods like darkening sky. My neighbour has a fish pond, koi, I think they are, and yesterday she said a grey heron carry one of her fish away on its talon into pastel colours of sky. Well, she didn’t say pastel colours, I did, I say poetic nonsense like that. Anyway, she complained no end, saying that one koi cost her more than a week’s groceries at Aldi. And I’m thinking, isn’t Aldi that shop that’s cheaper than holey socks … I didn’t say that though – didn’t want to upend her perfectly miserable story. I mean, I’m not completely without heart.

Indelible as ink, their black breast and wing
Crows hoarding bones
And this small earth falling apart like parentheses

Poem form: A haibun. Artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2023.