Aviary

by Maureen N. McLane

Curmudgeon
pigeon,
iridescence
glinting unlike
granite,
what common
gullet did you peck
that crumb down now
you jerking thing
some call a flying
rat? Rats will inherit
the earth’s garbage
dump and you
may also flash
on that trashheap
called the future
untransformed.
Yet to the dove
you’re kin.
If my love
could sing
like a mourning
dove, could ring
the wrongs
away in the wind…
Kind bird,
do what’s yours
to do with every
scrap forgot—the nightingale’s
not more precious
than your idiot
insistence to stick
around and peck and look.