I don’t know if I can say this with full certainty
but I believe there are crows taking cautious steps
across my rear threshhold into my house.

I could get up and look, of course,
but then they might step back just as cautiously
upon hearing me stir, and then I’d be forever unsure.

If they are there, there are certainly three of them.
If they are there, they are surely bright eyed
and have a specific mission to accomplish.

No one knows who sends crows on their missions
or why they enter houses silently on foot.
Few notice they’ve been there

except when a shiny
thing, a needed thing, a thing
worth living for has disappeared.

Even then, few blame the crows —
put it down as being the fruit of a bad memory
or just the way things go — but eventually,

after it’s happened more than once,
after we’ve awakened more than once
to their talons on the linoleum,

we understand
that it’s crows
that take such things away.

When we see them on the street
we try to stare them down and see
if they’ll admit to the thefts.

Have you ever looked into their eyes?
You know how hard it is to see past that blackness.
But facing them down is our job and worth doing;

that’s how we win, how we learn
that what we thought was stolen
was taken as a down payment

for a journey we had forgotten
we had booked.  And then, gently,
they lift us, and we fly.

So I’ll sit here and listen.  There’s a step now.
And another, or is there? I’m staying put.
That seems,  for now, to be the best strategy.