White Birds

Edit -Thank you Kate:



White Birds

I remember your house when we were kids -
your parents kept white birds in hatches or hutches
or cages. Why? I said, they are just white birds;
BUT THEY ARE DOVES, you said, DOVES
OF PEACE AND LOVE AND FREEDOM.

I could have asked you why, why are they noisy
and dirty and fighting - and lonely when you leave them?
But I didn't, I didn't want to hurt you then...Who are they?
I asked, of the two free, soft, fat, lilac and grey:
A PAIR OF DOVE PIGEONS. DOVE PIGEONS
OF NOTHING WHO COME HERE EVERY DAY.

I could have asked a zillion questions, but I didn't because...
Later, a child's later, it could have been a week or a year,
decades, we stood together taller by the aviary,
SICK. THEY ARE ALL SICK AND DYING.
You could have said that you didn't care,
but I would have known you were lying.
THEY'VE GOT FLU, LIKE THE BLACK DEATH –

END OF, and you turned, ambling long-limbed
to the house, so I wouldn't see you crying.
I couldn't say I did, so I didn't. Didn't want to hurt you...
Then, after - that evening, later, I heard the lilac and grey doves
roosting on your feelings, older; nestled up together, two sugar
almonds, night blue cooing to the pulse of your breath.

We waited it out on the sofa. It was all still before us.
On the threshold of day we slept, until I woke and wept
for the silent morning chorus. Everywhere I rest
two lilac dove pigeons nest and calling each other,
always to the pulse of my heart.

edited08

poem 90's