This morning,
on my way to work,
I pass a raven perched on top
of the tall silver
antenna of the light pole.

It is like a hawk that took possession
of this electric creature
and drained it of its phosphorescent juice.

"Dark rules; dark rules,"
it tells me.

Duane Ackerson has received a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and several Rhysling Awards from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Collections of his poems and prose poems include The Eggplant & Other Absurdities and, most recently, The Bird at the End of the Universe.