“They’re not flying to represent freedom, Paul,”
she said, smiling at the crows, tipping just below the ridge,
next, unwinding, thinly touching black cornices of lake.
“They’re not circling to symbolize love, darling.”
They’re hungry. They want food” And later,
leaning on the kitchen counter,
he recalled these remarks, observing the resolve in which her
body gathered and bore down into day-old bread,
the way both hands slid to her hips, fingers spreading to
meet the knife, and how her small mouth puffed-up to
chew a kind of wild clay.
Around her lips, a white cloud of flour
that formed into a peckish smile.