PIDGIN CATHARSIS

you watch them, if you
might, if you
would (though most
just ignore),
and perhaps would
wonder this:
which god
(or goddess) did they
so annoy, so distress that they
would be
doomed, damned to
their
palty,
ignominious,
existence?
wandering, homeless; uttermost scavenging;
dull, muted in plume; not
soaring like hawks, but hunted,
instead, by them
(and, BTW, by most Departments
of Health);
“flying
rats,” and hunted as such;
haunted as infestations and infectations. and then there’s this:
some beliefs believe that bodies once deceased return
as members of another
kingdom, a different one.
and, say,
for example,
if it’s the animal one, what if,
what if,
just what if you return not
as
a
lion
or tiger
or an elegantly cowled owl,
but
as
a
pigeon?
do you ask
for
a
mulligan?
or do you
hunt
and
peck, as is your fate,
and
roam and
just
try to survive, or to
somehow, maybe,
one day,
teach a lesson to someone
watching. that perhaps more
of
us
are – will be – pigeons
than
eagles, chased from perch
by
beds of
nails.