IN WARSAW, NEAR THE VIADUCT
The ravens pay no attention to the billboards
advertising cheaper phones, cantilevered beaks
grip the scraps of dead nests, recycled dank straw,
or the dark thread from the favorite shirt of a man
whose children could not save all the precious objects
that he once owned.
And you are not the first on earth
to read the spray paint on the wall, each slavered word
that eats the rusted belly, agitprop of turf
so vividly asserted, each outlined letter
the new border of a country, barbed wire and swirl
of small bird attacking hawk.
And on their thick necks
the ravens nod, sour old men, having seen it all.
Daniel Bourne’s books include The Household Gods (Cleveland State) and Where No One Spoke the Language (CustomWords). His poems have also been in such journals as Field, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Salmagundi, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, Yale Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review. He teaches at The College of Wooster in Ohio and edits Artful Dodge.
