Ravens
Robert made them chicken Milanese, fried chicken, and vol-au-vents
Their frumpy, unmarriageable daughter got fatter and fatter
Once the young left the nest, the parents could go back to having sky-sex
Apart from Robert, to whom I am apparently married, my only companions on the New Mexican mesa — at 6,500 feet of altitude, forty minutes from town — have been two horses and a pair of ravens. It is already remote, but I also cannot drive. Even if I could drive, vehicles are vengeful and all but guaranteed to break down as soon as they reach the mountain, or are otherwise liable to try to kill themselves, and me, by jumping off the vertical cliff where all cell service stops. It is here that the ravens’ crèche is located, where fifty or sixty youths gather every fall, having left their parents’ nest to find a mate, improve their flying skills, and do all the other stuff they hadn’t paid enough attention to when they still were living at home. They are a raucous bunch, terrorizing whoever passes by this part of the mountain around this time of the year, chasing cars and harassing the bicyclists — those that are strong enough and idiotic enough to ride up here, where there is nothing to …