at the corner liquor store
the turbaned man from India scowls at boys
on skateboards who come into his store for candy,
sodas, their huge pants flapping around twiggy ankles
he shoos them from the aisles as if
a flock of starlings had invaded his field
his wife jingles shyly, bracleted behind the counter in her bright
silk costume, yellow as the breast of a tanager
but he is always dour when I come into the store for a carton
of milk, a tiny jar of mayonnaise, a box of Little Friskies
doesn't say thank you come again as he hands me my bag

but one day, walking up from the sidewalk,
in one of those landscaped-parking lot-shrub-beds, alongside
the store, with its three sad bushes and layer of shredded bark
I see a flat box containing pieces of torn bread--
sometimes brown bread, sometimes french
or the fluffy white kind that goes best
with Miracle Whip, new pieces every day--until I catch
the shop owner breaking bread into the box
and I ask him do you have a pet
no, he says, it is for the birds and his smile this time
is as shy as his wife's     after this
I begin to notice crows

one morning from my car window, waiting
for the light to change
I watch a pair of crows drop stale bread into a sprinkler puddle
then peck at the bread as it softens     another time
a shiny crow flies low alongside me,
beak loaded with a chunk of bread as white
as the shopkeeper's teeth when he smiled, its wing
as black as his eyes     now, I think crow thoughts--how it is easy,
for the world, to love robins and yellow warblers;
that a scrap of tin foil, rightly placed,
completes a fine nest.