The saddest thing

is a widower with sunblock

and a roof-top pool   unable

to reach that place 

where his wings would be

had his parents been crows  

but had his parents and he

all been crows and feathered

he wouldn't need the sunblock

fingers   the arms to reach there    

but if by some instinct he as a crow 

found himself beside the same 

pool with its smoky city views

and a roof-top widower 

was there   he as a crow would think 

nothing  of him   nothing but how 

the light burns off his glasses 

They who leave a penny on the bottom

do so not because they made a wish

the day the pool opened for chlorinated

business   but for some kind 

of foot fetish  or fetish with places people

hold their breaths temporarily

I'm sorry but that's a place

we all go alone regardless

of what shiny object or lack

left to gleam and be reached for    I don't know 

but some people are so twisted   so pissed in 

that any kind of psychological chlorine 

couldn't begin to cleanse their dead-bug 

slurping soul