I don't know why I do it

I don’t know why I do it,

reading the Daily Mail online

is like visiting a virtual morgue every morning.

There’s so much beauty outside

but I just can’t resist looking into the abyss;

the baby whose parents starved her

finally found peace in her car seat

while they ate a Golden Corral bumper meal,

the two-year old boy that shot his mum in the face

on a shopping spree at Walmart

with the licensed gun in her handbag.

Swearing to buffer the madness

I make coffee in the kitchen

and then return to the hotseat

to read Cainer’s predictions for ’15.

Apparently my masterplan will come off

after the thing that’s going to happen in March

but maybe I’m not the only Aries

with a sodding deathwish.

There’s movement outside

and when I peer up into the white morning light

a crow’s picking away at something black,

something motionless on an icy driveway.

He’s holding it down with his feet

tucking in with vim to break the seal.

It may be a poop bag

and I laugh as the crow shudders,

but it stays on top of the thing.

Maybe it’s a roadkill bird

and I wonder whether birds eat each other

or if they like doing it with their dead,

but then it moves.

Firing a peck at the crow’s neck,    

she wafts him away and drifts

a man’s length onto the road,

flapping her wings.

Looks could kill or I don’t know

maybe she’s happy

filled with the joys of life and love

as he rests to contemplate his dutiful mastery,

looking down at the place he passed the parcel.

She takes flight

and he follows.