relieved raze the blue jays are always screaming. but not like this. two discordant voices tore the morning a new asshole with some awful call-and-response canticle. i understood why when i saw her on the roof of the house across_the_street, still as a stone. harpooned by a hawk and left to stiffen in the unsure sun, i guessed. something to return to and strip for parts when hunger struck. strange that the corvids would mourn the loss of an earthbound animal they don't seem to care for on any other day. i didn't want to see her eyes sewn shut with the thread carried by that bird's hooked beak. but i had to get closer. to be sure it was her. the moment my feet met the road, she rose and ran away. not dead. not even wounded. just enjoying the cool kiss of asphalt for a while. i would have shed my socks like snakeskin and joined her, but whatever warmth autumn had to give was already gone. 231028 what's it to you? who go blather from