At your funeral.
Le petit mort.
Or.
Perhaps it is.
The death of self.
It, the crow–
Audacious trickster.
Sits on my open chest.
Eating my heart.
Dismembering it.
Pulling it out with its strong beak.
I can feel it, severing the connections.
The blood pulses and pools.
The crow, grabs it out and flies off.
Carrying my heart across the fields.
Over the desert.
To you.
Will you eat it?
Will it be a fricassee?
Will the fire of blood sate you?
But no.
The crow.
He is a messenger, a courier, a carrier of things.
All the things.
The bright and beautiful.
Magic and mysterious.
They catch his eye.
And he carries them back and forth.
A shuttler of bounty.
A lover who is masked with darkness and the slick oily flutter.
Of his wings.
He settles upon you, my heart in his ebony beak.
A daisy springs from it.
There.
See.
It flowers for you.
You in turn, hand the crow your heart.
Plucked from beneath the cage of your chest.
The crow hops down onto your raised arm and tucks the heart.
My heart.
Into the cavity there.
The blood and sinews collapse upon it and take it into your body.
I am within you.
The crow chortles in its throat.
A satisfied sound.
Then it grasps your heart in the lance of its bill.
And.
Flies back to me.
My chest bared, eyes wide open, laying flat on my back.
Tears spilling down my face.
Knowing that I have given you everything.
Not expecting.
Not once.
To have your heart placed inside my chest.
To have my blood pumping through its chambers.
And yet.
This.
This is exactly what happens.
The dark wings flutter.
The open mouth exhales.
The heart falls from the crows beak.
A rose sprouting from it.
And drops into my open chest.
I sigh.
Such.
Unexpected ecstasy.
Lacing my fingers over the wound which seals itself.
Heals itself.
I arise.
Flowering for you.
You now in me.
As I am.
Within you.
Love betwixt.
Apart.
Yet.
Always.
Together.
Auntiebubba 