I.
The bird picks a flea out of its primaries.
The bird is a crow
and it could use a stick
if it wanted to.
The crow can’t help but pick.
II.
Cavemen scrape their loafers under
the Japanese maples.
They throw rocks up at the crows.
The rocks have tags on them,
like a blackmail brick
through a window.
Diary of birds via harassment.
At least we’re out of the lab.
III.
Crows only caw around humans.
In the back bridges of their own trees,
they have a complex system
of throatings and beakings.
one sounds like falling water.
Another sounds like the bubbles at the bottom.
Another sounds like a blossom bursting on the shore.
IV.
The crow remembers this biped.
It unleashes
the shard of slate on the floor of a gully
(its voice).
It unleashes
the shard of slate on the floor of a gully
(a rock).
V.
The stone misses.
The crow cannot resist picking.
Its arc cuts an apogee through the Quad.
The stone falls to the brick
and the cavemen have their spark.
VI.
Dinner parties die
to candles, small talk, and hunger.
Naming your three favorite animals
and the personality behind your choices
is a trap.
The first one (a crow)
is you in a relationship.
The second one (a raccoon)
is your partner in a relationship.
(The third one is a red herring.)
The host is hiding the silverware.
VII.
The crow in captivity
is banded.
The researchers
give her purple and gold.
She is colorblind
But the weight isn’t lost on her.
She wonders if they’re trying to make her bipedal
or choose flight only
wings only
hatch her into an albatross.
She can’t help but pick.
VIII.
My what a lovely
maze! Such mirrors
and PVC pipes—
false branches, I’m not supposed to know
your wares. You’re not supposed to know about my
falling water my
bubbles rising my
cherry blossoms failing to burst my
my my.
IX.
As zoologists,
they can quantify her feathers,
beak size, weight, heart rate, parasites,
tics, vocalizations.
When they try to qualify
they can only think of her as a baby fox
wide eyed and trying
every mesh of the fence with its teeth.
Just for this purpose,
the crow would grow extra beaks.
X.
The crow sees glasses,
does not caw.
Fleshy human cheek.
Recognizes the handwriting on the clipboard
the blackmail
the ransom notes
the ankle tags.
The crow remembers the cavemen
and the threat behind them.
Remains silent.
XI.
The crow is the subject of
a paper.
Brain imaging reveals neuronal circuitry underlying the crow’s perception of human faces.
The crow is the subject of
a facemask prank.
Marzluff and the other scientists speak in front of painted bookshelf backdrops
for History Channel specials.
They lend their masks
to dramatic reenactors.
The crow
could show them all a thing or two
about specializing vocalizations.
XII.
The crow loves mango.
The crow has been named Lucy
and gladly shits on the literature
explaining the caveman reference.
XIII.
The researchers set Lucy free.
The crow jots twelve feet up
into the safety of the Quad.
The cherry blossoms haven’t burst yet.
The water has yet to fall.
Students have stolen the bricks below on dares
and there are plenty of rocks to choose from.
The crow cannot help but pick.
The researchers burn their masks
but soon they will find bricks through their windows,
blackmail in a splash of glass.
Caw.
Cali Kopczick is an editor at Chin Music Press and the assistant director of the forthcoming documentary Where the House Was. Her work has been published in Bricolage, BLIND GLASS, and The Raven Chronicles. “The Crow Study” was the winner of the University of Washington’s Joan Grayston Poetry Prize in 2014.
