Two Crows in a Bin

He hasn't left us any recycles,
lamented one to another.

You're rummaging the wrong bin,
replied the surly one.

Shards, rotting peas, uneaten
drumsticks... listed the nosy one,
no imagining tempers were flung
last night, it continued.

You can't bake pies from false eggs,
surly cut nosy off, stop your
business about pecking bins not
your own.

Uneaten drumsticks and shards spell
quarrel, nosy pressed on stubbornly,
and look, here is a gleaming ring too,
it squawked triumphantly,
I should know it was the man's cooking,
or perhaps, his smelly socks, nosy's
know-it-all tone circling the air.

Let's take it to our nest, surly mocked,
and frame it to the tree.

Shame on your sense of romance,
nosy taunted, I should sneak it back
to his poor, heartbroken bedside.

Oh, let's. That ought to re-spark their romance,
surly's sarcasm equalising the day's swelter.

Nosy did as nosy willed. Next day,
beak poked into the same bin:

He threw the ring away, again! A shrill
lament echoed yester-morning's
but with a note of personal pathos.

Our tree-wall awaits its ornament,
surly revised the idea.

Meanwhile, man glaring at the
two crows from his window. Swift
like a baseball pitch, a shiny black
shoe bonked nosy's head, bouncing
off of the rim, landing a stench on
its drop into the bin.

Meddling mass of feathers! He yelled,
stick to your ecological sphere.
Human emotions are not your realm
of physics, hurling the other pair
missing surly.

Surly smirked: emotions not his realm
of balance either, mock-circling
the clumsily landed shoe on the
pave.

Come along, nosy, surly flapped his wings
rising into the air like a grand king,
let's find us new bins to pervade.

First published in The Song Is