RACING PIGEONS
the hours moved by/ sky reflected
in my wristwatch face/ the racing
pigeons have lost their way/ are
feeding along the median strips/
small subtractions from the flock/
forced to the ground by storms &
gales/ during one thousand miles
of disorientation/ this 'fantastic
sporting event' taken as far as the
queensland border/ birds compete
against the vast expanse of sky &
crushing hunger/ in an attempt to
return to their lofts/ to the only
source of food they know/ a bird
that gets home is a winner/ she
could not fly/ so thin her breast
bone showed/ protruding through
the skin/ she was as white as dawn/
when i found her/ a solitary racer/
rushed into the dirt/ a pinprick of
blood/ eye like a pond/ it was not
the drama of rescue that took her/
but the slow starvation/ that turns
insides to bone/ then breast bone to
powder/ it was the strictly-prepared
absence of food/ that kept her air-
borne/ direction orientated/ expert
decipher of earth's magnetic fields/
her delicate machinery propelled
towards appetite/ the food tray the
uncertain prize she flies home for/
sunrise & sunset/ circling the hard
pounding of wings/ the gravitational
heartbeat of a bird racing/ you are
becoming sleepy/ as the rain pounds
her down/ by the time you close your
eyes she will be gone/ she is just one
of many/ a grey bird that you find in
the morning/ mostly these pigeons
starve miles away | 
