I ask the birds to go away,
say we can play another day.
(Yet all my birds stay grounded tight
with wingless waddles on the roof.)
This message isn’t erudite.
It lays the groundwork for a flight
map to a city filled with love’s potential.
As metaphor, enter our dove
who wears a pair of boxing gloves,
which rather than just pull a punch
give a pigeon pal a distinct shove
right off the rooftop fire escape.
Down and down that pigeon fell,
“I hope into the depths of hell,”
said Doug the dove, “It’s getting late,
and that was just a bad bird’s fate.”
He’d look his bird girl in the face
if only she’d not turned away
and waddled to the other side
of their fair rooftop garden place,
a lush love nest, oh, it had been
for those two lovebirds filled with pride.
Why, just for breakfast they had crepes
and now that it was time for lunch
or right before their oldest pal
the pigeon met his early death
she’d scanned for a spare pair of plates.
“Oh, we’ve got plans, a special date,”
cooed Doug, his beak awash with spittle,
yes, Doug the murderer’s white-whistled din
was hijacked by the grand chanteuse
who broke into a song aimed at their city
with warbles any bird would pity
“Oh callow fowl what horrid riddles
rang sleekly through your sickly-slick beak
into my stupid, stupid heart. Oh, how
you’ve made me all but fall apart just now,”
with those last words she made a bow
that twisted her poor body round
until her killer bird had found
his way into her eye’s periphery
then up she rose most eerily
and twisted back toward the city’s
rooftops over which she then
dramatically soared a while
before the ugly angular swoop
that took her straight down to a stoop,
a landing that would shatter all
her bones, her brains, her wings. That fall
was all old Doug from there’d remember
until he fluttered about death’s embers
muttering something about long lost lovers
and hopes and dreams and scary things
like stabbing, killing and maiming wings
of birds he’d known with no excuse
but for the trauma of his youth.
And as a chick Doug was a bird
of means. He’d truly had it all.
He’d come from such a legacy that word
was confident he’d be the greatest.
Any bird that walked next day down lovers’ lane
would see in massive font upon the Birdnews’
cover, from first edition to the latest,
but one headline that read as plain
as day: “The bigger the bird the greater
the fall.” That was it and that was all.
