The Crow Migrates from the Outer Dark
by Mike Allen
Alone among the cosmic menagerie, I am defined not by bones drawn in stars but by black between; as my wings eclipse, their desperate shine bends around my feathertips, begging for your gaze. To you, lovely worms, I'm but a lone eye staring back at you on deepest nights when your fires gutter out and the turbines that charge your cities falter. So far away you still haven't noticed how each year my single star glows brighter, plunging inward at the speed of light. The curve of my wings once marked the rim of the universe. They still do, that boundary shrinking with my eons-long dive. When I arrive, your sons and daughters countless generations hence — those who survived the fox's snapping jest, the thousand spider nests, the serpent's airless smother — will see naught in their sky but the emptiness inked in my quills, the scavenging void's sharp beak.
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