About Crows

Suburban Mythopoetics

9 Su b u r ba n My t h o p o e tic s After the kid next door lost both eyes to cancer, echolocation helped detect the objects around him. Acrylic prosthetics are like dead stars, I think, as I sit on the front porch watching him glide on his bike around the cul-de-sac—tongue-clicking sound waves off Saturns, station wagons, and even my grandfather after losing so much, retained the I’m falling feeling just before his hip crashed the cellar floor. Spatial memory and sense of motion, the doctor explained, are usually last to go. This might be why he was down there building birdhouses in the first place: because classical sailors were kiss-asses of the high seas, their simple plan to keep from sinking to the wine-dark deeps involved carving the Gemini twins into the bows of their ships in hopes of flattering safe passage. It was common wisdom that if one became cloud-covered, they were meeting some tragedy, like Somali pirates launching grenades at a Disney cruise ship— who do those crews pray to? And who should I call on to protect the miniature golf course and medical clinics stockpiled with sunblock and Dramamine when terrorists aim pontoon planes full of gasoline at one of three rotating four-star restaurants? My grandfather is pissed. He’s telling me, when he comes for the dog, about the loss of hearing in his right ear. And the quack who checks his brains keeps making moves on him. It’s always: What’s your name? Where do you live? What do you like to do in your free time? To which he replies, every time, Listen, I love my wife. My grandfather is pissed and telling me again about his hearing when he returns with the dog, because I’m not doing anything, just writing a plane out of the sky from the front porch. Because 10 I put it there. And because I was born in June. And because someone has to protect the 8,000 gallons of Neapolitan ice cream and the numb hands that do the scooping. My grandfather opens the car door as my neighbor leans his bike against a fire hydrant (or mailbox?) and tongue-clicks a sound wave off him. I think they couldn’t possibly have anything to say to each other. But each acknowledges the other—the presence of something—when the car’s put in gear, and sweat drips into my neighbor’s wide, unblinking eyes. ...