Brendan Byrne

Too Many Crows in the Sky

I drive us past a burning cabin
in the middle of a field; its ashes
mark the ground like a bloodstain 

while your eyes trace the horizon.
I can only imagine what you must
be thinking, maybe about what it’s 

like to be a bird and disappear into
the clouds. It’s early enough so that the
burning cabin, fading into the muddle of

things behind us, is still the brightest
thing we can see. You ask me what it
feels like to catch fire and I don’t know 

what you mean so I say nothing, and
the silence carries on. I slide a cassette
into the deck, and its soft hiss plays loud. 

It’s a song about going somewhere, for no
particular reason. You gave me the tape for
my birthday, three years ago, before we had 

to go anywhere. You look at me, and you smile, and
your hand grabs mine, tighter than it has in months,
and over the soft hissing of the cassette tape I whisper
that I love you, while the words keep telling us to leave.

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Brendan Byrne is a student at Hamilton College in Central New York. His work has previously appeared with Green Ink Poetry Press.