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I pray that the crows will return to my yard
so I can watch them pluck off their plumes
like soft black knives, alive the way words
are alive inside the earth of our bones. Did you know
that the tongue is never empty? That it has a memory
all its own? If you were to flay mine you’d find
the letters of your name next to the ones
for God; they make a shadow that travels
backward inside my throat along that pink hollow as if
I were a cave of honey. Come, listen to me speak. Let my mouth
move against your emptiness until you utter back to me
the sounds I most want to hear. Once spoken, a word
is fragile as music and holds no more. Today the crows
have changed my name so you’ll no longer feel me
on your tongue, you who were barely inside
me. I’d take your right eye, blue, and place it
next to its mate, also blue, arrange them like pebbles
in this dish on my desk. I know you think about
me. You’ve sent these crows to my yard to spy,
to arrow their wedged and dark heads down to the earth
as if they are pointing to where I’ve been. 
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