Migrators
“Into our plaza they come uninvited:
more and still more; all scattering guano;
damaging eaves with their pestilent scratching;
scavengers mostly; probably spies;
if they eat too much rice, they explode like a bomb.
Crawling with vermin and Cryptococcosis,
feeding on handouts and gabbling shyly,
they eke out a living. God only knows where
They nest, in some hovel alitter with hatchlings.
Don’t give me that stuff about morningtime being
awash with the angels; they’re pigeons and filthy.
Sure, they can fly; feathering smoothly through
aether like light, or floating in delicate
arcs through the heavens; their throats jeweled with purple
and aquamarine, like the scales of dragons—
which they indeed were, an epoch ago, and,
you know, which they still could become once again.”