The Crow Knows What Is Breaking & The Watermark

by Bethany Ball

The Crow Knows What Is Breaking

I always wondered if Mary’s troubles had anything to do with the things she broke. There were so many plates, saucers, brooms, and vases breaking before one could only wonder. Sharp and bony and breakable was she. Her fingers were twice as long as any man’s. When she was a girl I remember how well she hid them. A defect. From the ends of her fingers the breaking began. Saucers slipped from her hands. Cups too.

She was not meek but she was reserved and I wondered if what she really wanted to break were the necks of the children who teased her.

We are the same and whole, the children said, because you are different and apart.

Surround yourself with beautiful objects and kiss your bird. Kiss your stone. Yes, these were the ways of her beauty. She had found glinting off the side of the old mountain road a little talisman, a black stone carved into a simple bird. So it seemed like prophecy when some days later an old crow, an ancient grandfather crow, came and b…