CROW-WOMEN
- Feb 13
- 1 min read
Updated: Feb 16
By Gabrielle Munslow
Crows are women who embraced the dark
and never came back—
iron-winged, flame-eyed,
their breasts like banners of defiance.
They clatter across rooftops,
spilling laughter like gin from a broken bottle.
Their feathers reek of funeral lilies,
their tongues stitched with moth wings.
When they open their mouths,
the night bends sideways.
Men drop their cutlery in terror,
prophecy staining the tablecloth.
Open wings like iron overcoats,
armour against the wrath of men.
Beaks peck at the peccadillos,
tally sins in the marrow of bones,
each peck a ledger entry,
each scream a feathered psalm.
Their shadows lace the cobblestones,
iron hieroglyphs no priest can erase.
Women who would not kneel
become crows who will not hush.
Then they dissolve into steam and mud,
a baptism of blood.
The earth drinks them whole,
dark chalice gaping,
and the sky gurgles with hunger.
What rises is not crow, not woman,
but something stitched from shadow—
a hymn of claws,
a gospel of rupture.