A loud thump against glass.

Must be a bird hitting a window pane.

I hope it’s okay.

In a minute I’ll look.

 

There’s a dead pigeon in the flower bed.

Folded into itself, tidy,

with flopping head and broken neck.

Softly coloured, peach running into grey.

If pigeons were rare

they’d be famed for their beauty.

Later, I’ll take a closer look.

I’ll honour its life,

I’ll describe it with paint or words.

Later, when there’s time.

 

But I forget

and when I find it again

I’m tired

disgusted with everything

with life

with random events.

 

The pigeon is ugly and stiff.

It’s just a bird

it’s one of many casualties

it’s of no significance.

 

One moment it was flying

feathers preened heart pumping

going somewhere

and the next it had crashed

knocked out by a simple mistake.

 

On the glass is its ghost

as if etched.

The spread breast and soft little feathers

the line of its open wings

imprinted there by the smacking force of its flight

and its brokenness in death.

 

I pick the corpse up

by its cold pink feet – with its perfect toes

and carry it over the track

to lay it gently

under the low branches of an evergreen.