The Crow by Misha Solomon

April 11, 2022

POEM TITLE: The Crow POET NAME: Misha Solomon POEM: At the wild animal refuge slash zoo where I attended day camp and later volunteered as an assistant counsellor there was a crow who liked to be pet, who was known to come to the bars of his cage and press his shiny black crow head against the space between two thin wire columns and let you pet him. More than let, he’d ask you to pet him, this was an act replete with consent, and how sad is that, to be a crow who wants to be pet. How sad for a desire for affection to come not only as a surprise, because crows are bad omens and not mammals, but to become your entire personality. Imagine: everyone you meet is not only shocked to know you’d like a friend, a warm caress, an ounce of passion, but also talks about it ad nauseam, in marketing materials, on tours. The crow goes through his small caged life thinking all of these people want to show him love and yet they are simply following a script, checking an experience off a list, did you know, honey, that in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue there’s a crow who likes to be pet and I did, I pet him with my own two fingers, his feathers were silky smooth and they made me think of my grandmother’s wrist, how soft it was and how it seemed to lose that softness when I stopped feeling the beat of her heart against my fingers, and this whole time the crow is thinking I am loved, I am wanted, I am an end in and of myself. END OF POEM. CREDITS AND BIO: Copyright © Misha Solomon Misha Solomon (he/him) is a queer poet in and of Tiohti:áke/Montréal. His first chapbook, FLORALS, was published by above/ground press in 2020. His poetry has appeared in Yolk Literary Magazine, Fruit Journal, Leste Magazine, and on Dial-a-Poem MTL.