Save the Trafalgar Square Pigeons

You left me in a painting that day. My head

already in halfway, following a follower

following Cadmus following moon shaped hide

like a fool when it was right there in the title.

I guess I’d never seen a man dive

into a dragon’s maw in search of water.

It happens all the time. Your mind outside,

hand outstretched to feed the lions and birds

alike. Lined at your feet, they splash into

the street at your offering. And there I was —

hand in glove, head in love with moonlit caves

and a razor raised to slay those grey beasts.

It occurred to me that we only knew

each other’s bodies in the heat of summer

when packed ice poured through the window coils

and melted into the pools of Delphi.

You’re the only one who could ever

sow my teeth. You have to be a man in

search of absence to know how good that feels.

I devour those days now, sitting here

scales for skin in the dead of winter

waiting for this Thebian fantasy to end.

The pale birds do their necessary dance —

converge, diverge, converge, a final time

then separate for good. For good.

I can still hear the rattle of lovers

crashing through paintings, splashing into squares,

wheeling through alphabets and lost lovers’

treasure chests, the hot flesh of former lives

dancing through time and wanting for nothing

but only to be one singular thing.

I will see you again. In the final

spring when soldiers burst from the earth, blades raised

wasting days praying for rain, unaware

they’re already drenched to the bone. We’ll cast

one last stone among them — brave souls unfit

to know the very reason they were sown.

Now and then I wonder what’s worth saving

when nothing’s more gone than anything else.

My mind fast on the heels of memories

of following followers following

feelings of lying less

lying unintentionally

less