Hit play below to hear David Hutcheson read his poem “Crow” and scroll down for the full text. “Crow” is featured in MQR’s Spring 2021 issue.
Crow
I swear to christ I’ll snatch those cats up by the scruff & drown them in a bucket. She feeds & houses them for Matt—poor Ma— listens to me bitch with patience. My old room, the one he took, joins the bathroom where she found him asleep, needle in his arm, a couple weeks before he killed D—. It’s a Hollywood bath with a sink, window, door to the shared toilet, & a door closed on the staircase to the converted attic where she’s quarantined the cats. They meow meow meow whenever they hear me move. Lynx-spotted, black, they claw the door, shed, moan. The cartooned Saddle Cat hisses above the commode. The cowboy grips his leash like a whip. Wagging his beak, sword at my back, the jackdaw leads the zealots in masks of cat, vole, goat, ass, intoning in unison you may never leave. D— bleeds in the living room. They mew his ghost up. He can’t haunt how they can. They were my brother’s. They drown & drown me.
