Crow baby’s claws are curled tight to his chest.
He is as light as a packet of crisps,
with a beak he will surely grow into.
Swaddled from the curb-side in a Scarborough tea towel,
when Crow baby blinks his lids are white
as the flash of a pearl in a black gloved hand.
Unwrapped he stands, buckles, tips, taps the floor
with his yellowing beak ajar. I drip water
into its crack each hour, watch him grow bolder,
unfurl his toes, and at dusk, pluck a peanut
from the pile at his feet, rotate it expertly with reptilian tongue
before flicking it back down his hen-pecked neck.
Crow baby’s legs grow strong and restless.
I upgrade him to the shed with a window view,
room to strut or rest a while in a huddlesome nook.
He shits on the Sports section of the Sunday Times;
he shits on the lawn mower, an old sledge, a rake
and snatches a chip from my hand when offered.
His bead-eye follows as I fan out each wing – dishevelled
but intact. I roll him a fridge-chilled egg to crack,
clasped between claws, supping its slick before bed.
Two more days pass before Crow baby blunders
from the open door of his shed to lie stunned in the light –
a child deciding what pitch of wail his fall warrants.
But Crow baby is stoic, polite and proud, not a child at all
but a man in a suit with a place to be, who sadly
can’t recall where. Back and forth he stalks,
pecks at grass, pebbles, seeds, cocks his head to me
with a dry-throated croak, then dies in the night,
propped against a flat-tyred bike.
Crow baby in the crook of my arm pearl-eyed,
still floppy with life, forgive that I could not fix you,
nor speak your tongue as you went.
Claws curled to your chest, you seem blacker and smaller
as I cover you with earth, pack up your brief life,
beat salt into the last of your eggs.
Lauren Nichola Colley's first poetry collection Pegging Out won the Indigo Pamphlet Prize in 2021. She has been mentored and published in collaboration with the Unesco City of Literature (Writing the Contemporary, 2020).
He is as light as a packet of crisps,
with a beak he will surely grow into.
Swaddled from the curb-side in a Scarborough tea towel,
when Crow baby blinks his lids are white
as the flash of a pearl in a black gloved hand.
Unwrapped he stands, buckles, tips, taps the floor
with his yellowing beak ajar. I drip water
into its crack each hour, watch him grow bolder,
unfurl his toes, and at dusk, pluck a peanut
from the pile at his feet, rotate it expertly with reptilian tongue
before flicking it back down his hen-pecked neck.
Crow baby’s legs grow strong and restless.
I upgrade him to the shed with a window view,
room to strut or rest a while in a huddlesome nook.
He shits on the Sports section of the Sunday Times;
he shits on the lawn mower, an old sledge, a rake
and snatches a chip from my hand when offered.
His bead-eye follows as I fan out each wing – dishevelled
but intact. I roll him a fridge-chilled egg to crack,
clasped between claws, supping its slick before bed.
Two more days pass before Crow baby blunders
from the open door of his shed to lie stunned in the light –
a child deciding what pitch of wail his fall warrants.
But Crow baby is stoic, polite and proud, not a child at all
but a man in a suit with a place to be, who sadly
can’t recall where. Back and forth he stalks,
pecks at grass, pebbles, seeds, cocks his head to me
with a dry-throated croak, then dies in the night,
propped against a flat-tyred bike.
Crow baby in the crook of my arm pearl-eyed,
still floppy with life, forgive that I could not fix you,
nor speak your tongue as you went.
Claws curled to your chest, you seem blacker and smaller
as I cover you with earth, pack up your brief life,
beat salt into the last of your eggs.
Lauren Nichola Colley's first poetry collection Pegging Out won the Indigo Pamphlet Prize in 2021. She has been mentored and published in collaboration with the Unesco City of Literature (Writing the Contemporary, 2020).
