Poetry

Nicole Mauro writes poetry and book reviews, and teaches rhetoric and writing at The University of San Francisco. She has been published in various journals, including Skanky Possum, 580 Split, Syllogism, MILK, Big Bridge, Jacket, and HOW2. Her chapbook of homages to New York School poets, titled Odes, was published by Sardines Press in 2003. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and daughter.

She is currently working on a raptor series, titled Prey, about maurading birds. Crow, from this series, was inspired in part by the allegorical nursery rhyme about blackbirds baked into a pie for a greedy king, and in part by their well-documented acumen. In particular, crows are known to pick turtles up in their beaks, fly them up to high spots like utility poles, and drop them in order to shatter them out of their shells. It is a gruesome, but effective solution, and a surreal event to witness, especially if the turtle is big.

Crow

A nursery rhyme–drove of crows

some boys–to aperture

“The same pie hole”–break thru

avenge–How utterly

we are baked into

the dough folds–these breads

Blackbirds–O what will you do

To the woman who wrung your young necks

there are four and twenty of you–and only one womb

emphasis

Want is a kernel–ask

the crow how often

it has muttered that

over the shell covering

a turtle

The same riddle–I wish to wish

for a tub of butter, but there is spite in the act of having

and I haven’t the human

“To desire that which cannot properly happen”

Some boys–if, protruding, a

little

barely toward a very clothed woman

a thrush of blackbirds–be brung

a thrush of blackbirds–will

emphasis–come back

to that woman’s young middle

III

“Took a turtle to the sky”

You