modest place in east town
8 AM
read my detective novel in hot bath drawn from tank in the attic
heated overnight
cigarette smoke mixing with steam.
on green rusting washing pole
cord long gone to coil in the winter border
sits a white dove lit glowing by the low sun,
no hint
of his noisy oils
in the creamy feathers
he ruffles and smooths again. long shadow of his beak stretching along his back.
he
is
framed in the window perfectly like
in-laws on the mantelpiece.
well, at the back door i light another cigarette
i wear a damp towel pulled tight
in the draft
another over
my
shoulders. quiet out there but one man mends his shed roof
bent over behind
the bare trees
higher than fences
hitting nails in threes.
on the bent aerials monochrome magpies impossibly bright
against
the heavy grey storm clouds
nod and twitch and pace
smaller birds scattered
lost like seeds till shoots sprout
showing themselves again
in spring.
well, i'm not in west texas anymore . . . are
these
birds
omens i wonder?
this years nearly done with me. its mistakes and endurance and drool tailing off
like dawn mist on the choppy lakes where the
small boats creak
waiting.
wel, i decide to decide the birds are omens. why not?
and
i
stretch out
on the old bench picking at the weathered peel
andlooking at churches
again.
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