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