JULIANA ROTH

For Crow Boy

“First he imitated the voices of newly hatched crows. 
And then he made the mother crow’s voice. 
Then he imitated the father crow’s voice.” 
- Taro Yashima 

To call in my language of loneliness,
I arrive in a valley of crows. How to become more than
the landscape? Ingesting all that’s held in my beak,

I swallow corn grains from mountainside 
and return to my father’s wheelchair 
tracing his hand
over letters, 
forcing a marker 
against his thumb.

I say: write again, please. His name 
I’ve written in my best child cursive with too much assurance 
in not seeing what’s before me.

I plead again and again, not seeing a name
is no longer important — or words — or language 
just the sound, just what I can pluck from Earth

to hold in my hollow mouth, imitating 
until, there: a call of my own

A multi-genre artist and educator, Juliana's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Entropy, VIDA Review, Irish Pages, The Atticus Review, Reckoning, Yemassee, among other publications. She is the creator of the narrative web series, The University, which follows the bureaucratic failures of a university in the aftermath of a sexual assault on campus, offering resources for change.