Pigeon

Pigeon

Amanda Ryan

I saw a pigeon walking toward the trash
strewn on the pebbled walk; a sketchy mound:
Half-eaten fries sauced-up and napkins stashed
in a grease-pocked paper bag. It hopped around
the soggy dump, its strut like a skier on
straight ground. Its head bobbed with the swagger of
a master Chinese ping-pong player gone
Olympic. Consider this bird, this dove
that neither sows or reaps and yet is wrapped
in a suit the hue of rock and gasoline.
What beat sustains its funk and birdly zest?
It eyed me as it nuzzled in its crap.
A symbol of peace and love? It preened
as if to say the truth was in the jest.

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Amanda Ryan
Poet & Homemaker

Amanda’s poetry has appeared in Curator Magazine, The Christian Century, Mezzo Cammin, and Grand Little Things.

Photography by Nicolas D.C.