Anniversary by Mike James

You spent weeks working to half-repair a crow’s broken wing. She grew to trust. You explained flight would stay in her dreams. You were very young in those once upon days. There are times when that memory is as buried as the loved ones of an old life. You go on. Even as some nights you wonder if every house you’ve slept in didn’t secretly burn down. If someone didn’t come along and rebuild each one while no one was watching. You were never closely watching. You could never guess what was behind door number three even if all the other doors were open.  

Mike James makes his home outside Nashville, Tennessee and has published widely. His many poetry collections include: Red Dirt Souvenir Shop (Analog Submissions), Journeyman’s Suitcase (Luchador), Parades (Alien Buddha), Jumping Drawbridges in Technicolor (Blue Horse), First-Hand Accounts from Made-Up Places (Stubborn Mule), Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog), My Favorite Houseguest (FutureCycle), and Peddler’s Blues (Main Street Rag.) He served as an associate editor of The Kentucky Review and currently serves as an associate editor of Unbroken.