POETRY

Augury at Third and Lincoln

Dead end apartments and a park beyond.
Hollow trailers at no particular angle to one another.
The second day of melting.
I went to the West end of the street.
The snow half gone—parking lot
and tall weeds at one edge undressing;
I walked in on something still
and it stirred. Rattle of a punctured
muffler down the alley before I could see it.
Someone in short sleeves out to get the mail,
his small dog on a patch of dry asphalt
convulsing with barks.
I thought birds—their sounds
so necessary at dusk.
The week before I'd been sure we'd find them
trapped in ice at the bases of trees.
Days of silence had convinced me.
Besides I'd seen other signs: pigeons
as blue as the street, scattered
across a morning intersection. Too cold
to lift away, as pigeons do at a car's approach,
they hopped and flapped and fell
all the way to the median. The driver
had to stop, wait for them. Steam
escaped from under their wings.