Just Not So Story

Crows who wear the supernatural grave

black jacket of the robber, coat fan-tailed

and woven from the colours of the night

now glimmering and glistening in the light

once sported iridescent tales

equal to in subtlety and craft

th’ pea-brained peacock,

in shape and function as

the startling black white blue and green sheened

magpie princely prince/princess of thieves.

And once there was a time when Crow was White

as forsworn sins, his eye only of that

darker hue, a deeply darker blue than

bottle-flies that grew in Lazarus’s skin.

What had caused his coat to fleck and char?

An envious heart, a covetous eye?

Or was Apollo’s breath enough to scar

His throat and make him sing alone his caw!?