CROW GOES HUNGRY
Kate Ruebenson 

In this neighborhood  
The fences are flimsy  
The hollyhocks turn down  
The doors lose their hinges  
Well there’s nothing to steal  
Anyhow anything worth taking  
Already gone  
And anywhere worth going  
Not inside  
 
If one stands here  
Long enough  
The whispers of children  
And the groans of 100 single  
Mothers become  
Indecipherable  
From the crinkle of a week  
Split by a car wheel on pavement  
From the vocalizations of birds  
At empty feeders  
 
And the passing of time  
Feels analogous  
To the passing of friends  
A long and emphatic  
Lament.

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Kate Ruebenson lives in Brooklyn, New York where she is completing her MFA in Poetry at Brooklyn College and is an Adjunct Professor of English Composition. Her poetry has been published in Yellow Chair Review, Typehouse Magazine, Words, Chamber Four Magazine and Hanging Loose Press, among others, and last year her short film "Ephemreel" premiered at Noted Festival in Australia.