There was a time at Dufferin station when the black lines that ridged that mud pigeon’s wings reminded me of wound stripes on a war uniform, and because I saw it everyday stippled with flicked cigarette burns, I started to feel for the dirt thing, think of it sometimes in the dimmed light of long subway rides, its eyes red as a fresh bullet’s entrance. I wanted to transform its filth into a Lady Victory, its smog blood—liquid pomegranate, its flight Klimt-citrine. Star-eyed as a young war bride back then, I’ve since returned to myself, shell-shocked as a Flanders survivor. One cure: love the grey. Decoration— dead in me. That bird, dull as a back room tattoo faded under a naked bulb.

Mud Pigeon
by Amy Dennis
Poetry
View Amy Dennis’s author profile.

TopArt by Gilbert Li and Lauren Wickware
Recommended Reading
-
(Anything to Get) Rid of the Shine
by Amy Dennis
Poetry — Book 5 (2018)