Trapper Markelz
Will I Be Your Tragedy?
We don't really own anything, but we are great
at borrowing it vigorously before it is taken away.
Will I be your tragedy? Our travel thin
between a murder of seconds, my subdividing cells
just a little too out of control for my liking.
I've learned that crows can recognize our human faces.
They've evolved that way for a reason. If they know
you, they'll call out anywhere in the world.
Will they notice when I stop coming around?
A release of wire, and up they'll climb,
taking my crow name with them, carrying
trauma, passing it from bird brain to brain,
a lipless language spoken as a high cry above
the earth in the trailing reach of a brutal sun.
Bio
Trapper Markelz (he/him) is a poet, husband, and father of four, who writes from Boston, Massachusetts. His work has appeared in the journals Baltimore Review, Stillwater Review, The Moving Force Journal, Greensboro Review, Passengers Journal, High Shelf Press, Dillydoun Review, and others. You can learn more about him at trappermarkelz.com.