A Murder of Crows ~ Susan Elizabeth Howe

 

Bevy of starlets casts them
frail, quail-like, propelled
by the current breeze.  Shouldn’t
we say an augmentation of starlets
bursts onto Sunset Boulevard?
Or starlings, gender inclusive.

I’m for accurate names:  the grease
of lobbyists frying the country,
the contagion of talk show hosts
infecting channel after channel,
the grimace of pop psychologists,
the clench of clergy.  Yes, the labels

show me decidedly bleak, but not
about our tang of novelists, our paradox
of poets.  I credit the pillow of EMTs
cleaning up all the wrecks.  And claim
my angst, my prejudice, my right to
the raised eyebrow of little gods
directing my reportage.