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The Argument
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White Pigeons
are not doves. They do not stand
for peace, but flock and swoop
above my head in the blue before dawn.
They are a liquid in the air,
elastic, bunching and swarming
like oil drops on water.
I do not want to know the physics.
I do not want to make a documentary.
I stand and watch them ripple like a flag.
The soldier inside me wants to salute.
The prophet takes it for a sign.
They double-back, like a bed sheet, folded.
And then they dip below the tree line,
leaving their absence to hang in the air.
I never wished they were more than they were.
A mourning dove now sounds his call to prayer.
A red-tailed hawk lords over mousing fields.
I have heard some call all pigeons wingèd rats.
But these were different, bred to home,
which means that they were practising,
and work never seemed as elegant as this.
Tie a message to my foot. I will assume
my place in the aerial formation. Let me
be a single snowflake in that flurry.
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Still Life with Bougainvillea
The bougainvillea taps
at the window, and you
are gone. The cat watches
over the path where you
might return. I watch
the cat, and the small
flowers inside the flowers,
as they brush the pane.
On the cat, there are fleas.
In the flowers, flowers.
In me, your absence drums its
fingers at the points
where I notice my pulse, taps
its beak against the bars
of my chest. Small creature
in my own creature body,
white flowers enveloped in red.
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Amuse-Bouche
A dollop of cream from your own
mother’s milk, seasoned with tears
from the first girl you kissed,
garnished with coarse-cut parsley,
served in a snail’s shell.
Lint from your best-loved jumper
sprinkled with grains of a childhood sandbox,
wax shavings from your preschool crayons
nettles from the banks of the pollywog pond
all arranged in a favourite lunch pail.
Of course, for dessert, we have madeleines,
to dip in a tea made of vapour and dust,
sweet-smelling, like the home of your elderly aunt,
which dissolve upon contact and waking. Go ...
