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M. A. Schaffner
reads
First Magpies Ever
in Real Audio
format.
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My God, I thought, they’re bigger than crows:
satin black and deep gloss white.
From power line to tree top, they compose
arpeggios of high voltage, and yet alight
no worse off for their daring
than I’d be for caring.
I hold up a coin to interest one thief
and it swoops with a piratical flair—
a sort of voguing, or does that belief
seem as silly as a prayer
to gods who might well have been drinking
when they thought us up? What is it thinking?
It chuckles, almost melodiously,
but I have to go. There’s always somewhere else
to go, to show, to be but not quite be.
When I stop it stares, one to another self,
and then unfurls its private span of grace.
As I head back a fresh wind slaps my face.
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