Pigeons Still

– Pigeons still – she wrote, upon her note to Gordon Airth
the quiet room became a birdcage
melancholy blue
the soft flutter of wings and chummy hum of cooing
we woke every morning
to the sounds
the soft friendly feathery fawning
mites would enter in at our window
we thought
curious glowing-marble-eyes heads would crane their necks and watch into our window
she thought they would fly in
but they never did, their unconscious
thoughts subtracting heaven from eleven,
professor-like stepping to and fro
above the facia
free they were, but stuck together
inside our bedroom walls they
shuffled and hopped
wondering if one was stuck, I mentioned it
they were our ghosts for awhile
that haunted gently, the winter nights
and gaze in our eyes green purple and grey, brown eyes like a hollow spirit
just climbing down from its tree
we get up and make tea
and those fluttering pigeons
take lift off the roof corner and disappear in the vanishing point near a cloud
as grey as our sofa.

© 1995  Rudolf Penner