As I Remember an Unusual Bird Divides the Sky

I return, unlike the grey    crow who        has been missing for months. Ihope he has migrated to    México with the        monarchs and robins, not transitionedto the holy blue spruce    made of nebulae        and squirrel chatter. My mothertugs at the end of    my shirt        snug, no comment. I leave myshoes behind like banana peels.    I step        into the kitchen because I canno longer smell the lilac    bush my        father cut down, as if itcould be big enough, the    first green,        when my eyes shoot straight outof the earth. My mother    tries to say        beautiful but can't. Sheis busy trying to find     her favorite pan.        She knows she does nothave enough rice to feed    me and        what about her coffee pot? Theone I've spent my whole    life washing.        I drink so much coffeeit comes back to me    like the male        house finch who lands inthe cup of my ear,    flaps his feathers        and hangs a mailbox frommy earlobe. At least I    am alive.        I think, at what height canI find the grey crow?    I plant        our photo albums for the plumtrees I draped my body    from because they        were short, because they wereeasy to climb filled with    foxes running        among crab apple and pear trees,a carpet of rotten fruit    no one tried        to keep up with, their sugar emerges from my body,    the tail        of a quetzal, a memory offolding the dough of puffy tacos,    held together        with a toothpick shimmering in feveredoil. I am told to    look for        atomic number ten, a rabbit, theword is frijoles, I eat.    My father        removes his pistola from the ankleof his boot. It is    a shiny        speck of a sparkle that Ibend into a shock wave    swallow outer        space, I know a grey crowwhen I see one.I return to this constellation, I named Saginaw.