Our time is up. The deal is done. You flap and you caw and you search and you roost. You'll find no more walnuts of mine on the stoop. No acorns or almonds or sunflower seeds. For tradeoff of trinkets of lost memories. The compass you brought here is far too familiar. I clear off the sludge it is almost a mirror. A much younger me in its busted reflection. The fragments I fit are my own recollection: On trampled path, a doe is groaning. Coyotes lurking, fangs are foaming. Meaty steam fleeing From the punctured openings. On her neck. Dad thinks A lot, Aloud, About, Ending its misery. The deer looks at me. She knows. I run. Too close to the steep side, Where the creek meets, The tree line. I slip. In the mud. My dad, calling my name- SMACK! Slick leaves conspire with a hard stone to stop me. This compass he gave me that grandpa gave him. Perfectly balanced with accurate spin. A promise I made that I’d never drop it. An heirloom for ages in my stupid back pocket. Straight across, the glass… is… splintered. I-bury-it-under-a-wet-log. Blood from my knee dripping on top. Promising myself that no one will find it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - My father. Yelling my name. Would I be put out of my misery too? No more corn kernels! No more choke cherries! Shoo! …No. …No. A daddy picking up a boy who fell. I’m bouncing along with my chin on his shoulder. My secret is waning and shrinking and older. Safe like that forever. In the woods. Where it is ok to forget things. You must think I love circles. A bottle cap, a bracelet, a Danish krone, Now this. A compass with casing that time would not fix. If I wipe with my shirt, all the dirt off of it. It still swivels and spins and slopes and tips. Perhaps I might find a new housing that fits. He taught me to slow down and cut a decline. To walk my own path in a curved serpentine. Resisting illusions of easy straight lines. A crow to point B as it jokingly flies. I ran… I forgot… I am still sliding, Slapping into those rocks. In my unzipped coat! A shattering panic of startled black birds. Splaying from branches with the guilt of a murder. Like a child spilling his drink. Was he searching each season while I was a teen? Too busy with games to return to the scene? When I chose to chase girls instead of catch fish? Too old to be seen on a father-son trip? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Did he squander each autumn while a son outgrew him? Tracking blood to the trail to the log that it brewed in? Consumed in the clues of some crime unspoken? Accidental witchcraft on a birthright token? Did he flip every stone and walk every path? Criss-crossing the trees for the gift from his dad? And yet here it is. A shiny thing a bird returned, that I hold in my hand. Leave out a walnut… and wait for a trade… …A compass came back from wherever it’s been. …Perfectly balanced with accurate spin. Am I the reason each year he caught less? Great little helper without grit to confess? Losing parts of himself while he cleaned up my mess? Never knowing the truth to the day of his death? Our deal is done. A month in a cabin Is enough time To train a crow While I prepare things for the buyer And decide what to keep. No acorns or almonds or sunflower seeds.