K. Cronick
They come
still, hopping on
the scrubbed,
white window sill,
where now there
are
no pots of
rice and water.
They
prance and flounder
on the hot
metallic cover.
They’re the
dwellers of the rocks.
They look
below
and east
and west
at the
tiers of people-boxes.
So alike
we are.
But they soar
above us,
streak the
skies
with
graceful lines
that leave
no tracks
to trace
them back.
Our wings
are motorized.
They are
cars, and lifts,
that trace
our moves.
They shut
their doors,
we live
inside, and walk
on piled-up
floors.
We climb
the heights
to our high-stacked
nests.
Always up,
always down
in parallel
and vertical.
These are
the paradoxes
of the
lessor or the greater.
The
pigeons remember
how they
used to be
my
friendly guests.
Their
feathery breasts
rise and
fall
at the injustice
of it all.
The
neighbors objected
after a
day of rain
left smudges
on
their
window panes.
The biggest
bird
looks me
in the eye:
He asks me
“why?”
