She’s bad news, my teacher says.
I skip my last class to hang out
with the cool kid, the Raven.
She takes me to see her cache
of shiny things, pecks the gold
rings on my lobes, her beak soft.
You could leave these here, she says.
I let her slip them from my ears.
After we light up, I watch a black
feather descend from the sky. I ask,
What do you dream about?
She nibbles my lips, does not reply.
The black rubies of her eyes gleam.
I put the feather in a keepsake box,
open it every few days to finger
the hollow shaft, stroke the vane.
link to video
Find M. Frost in The Hopkins Review, Little Patuxent Review, Strange Horizons, and others, with poetry chapbooks Cow Poetry (Finishing Line Press), The Women of Myth (Island of Wak-Wak), Constellation (a collaboration with artist brother), and The March (The Arcanist, forthcoming). Explore more at mfrostwords.com.
