Lorna of the Crows
I was also born
in a crow’s nest in a valley
at the edge of Friston Forest
and on those nights
when I’m not at home
in my skin I shed it,
slick back my black feathers
and make for the graveyard
where I perch on a headstone –
I like the worn ones best, the ones
where the lettering has been eaten
away by wind, rain and time –
and bathe in the moonlight,
tapping my lizard-skin boots
and banging my head
to the party’s-end smooch
of insects, the bone-snapping
tangos of the dead.
*Lorna Thorpe is a poet and lives in Cornwall. Her second collection, Sweet Torture of Breathing, is due out in November from Arc Publications. When she's got the time and can be bothered she blogs at www.outtamind.wordpress.com