When they come, they bring the fearful dark,
like English majors looking for work,
feather-caped, bare-faced in red or black.
Now there is no empty tree. Stained bark’s
one sign they leave. They show no respect
when they come. They bring the fearful dark.
They praise flesh with a twist of their necks,
with their hiss from song-refusing beaks,
feather-caped, bare-faced in red or black.
Where they’ve been is easy to detect—
bones realigned by their secret sect.
When they come, they bring the fearful dark.
They keep it hid, or so I suspect,
deep in images that our minds connect—
feather-caped, bare-faced in red and black—
to murder, suicide, auto-wrecks.
They slip away like impatient clerks.
They come back bringing our winged fears—dark,
feather-caped, bare-faced in red and black.