The Want Ads: Crow Seeking Lost Marble

I first saw you fall from a man’s pocket. He didn’t even notice, too busy trying to sweet talk some girl.

You rolled down the street without any hurry. I watched you the whole way, the charm of you. Little spark. You were picked up between the fingers of a round round boy. Somewhere between the park and home, he lost you too. I came for you finally while you were between parked cars, where the road rolls down to meet the sidewalk, almost a foot from the gutter. I picked you up, brushed you off, and took you home to my nest.

Green-eye, cat-eye, fire-center, you were the first clear thing I saw the sun through. I saw the light bend round the curved thought of your body. I caught you between my beak and lifted you up to see the green leaves. How they shattered into pieces of music in you!

Some days I would get lucky, catch a small rat and take it back to you. When all the flesh was gone and your nudity pressed up against the white bones, I could tell they were hollow and you were not. The bones would get more and more brittle while you held your perfect posture. So solid and yet I could see through you. How you amazed me! At night I slept with a claw around your waist.

I thought you would stay forever.

But you were stolen by another. Thief! Sly bastard with a shiny coat, one of my own kind of rabid criminals. I lost you when we were playing our favorite game. How I remember our game… I would leave you there, a glistening eye, as I circled higher and higher to see how far I could go and still see you. You winked at me from below — my very own Helios, my daystar. I wanted to see how far I could fly away from you before my heart would lurch out of me towards you and send me wheeling back to you on a full turn. Storm of want. I had to come back to you. I always came back to you.

That day it was just a second more, a shoulder’s neglect, and a brazen bandit (smaller, faster than me) swooped down and tore you away. He fastened you to the shifting corners of wind and I couldn’t catch up. Didn’t have the maps for this. Couldn’t read your signs through my tears.

Now you’re lost. Nights and long days I still look for you, searching every rooftop, all the eaves, nests, and every single tree. I’ve found a thousand things I don’t want anymore. Bottle caps, keys, hair ribbons, lint, bone marrow. Food is useless to me. Nothing has flavor, my throat is so dry.

Where did you go?

I miss you.