crossing Gough in car to
Bay Bridge
vision is taken up
by two pigeons

promenading around a flattened
bird body
maybe their offspring
dead too soon from a wound

pecking, prancing in circles
around the dead one
a sorrow in them
a sorrow in me

the wonder of street life
for birds:
high wires, poles, roof tops
careless pedestrian, driver

bird gone
and I think of
two words from a friend’s poem:
“boom splatz”