Coloring the Pigeons
- Coloring the Pigeons
They strut like heirs to a fortune,neck and chest feathers puffed on the readyfor late morning mounts. To let them knowI'm here, I've learned to pool salivain my throat and coo like one of them.I admire how they've made peacewith their low rankings among the swiftand beautiful, their contentment with crumbs.With the finest No. 2 Kolinsky brush,I paint them as they are, plain with everlastingblends of iridescent green and blue mauvegrays, colors that hide in-born ancestral fear—the five-egg pigeon omeletor squab grilled on a bed of rice and mushrooms,a meal for common royalty, for the poorkings among us, and their queenswho would serve them.I model my red, 2 a.m. bloodshot eyesto better render theirs; my paletubular bones to rough in skinny legsand feet callused from pacing back and forthon concrete. Their need for me to paint themis not unlike my own needto be larger than myself, filled inso as not to disappear. When gone,to at least be looked for. [End Page 13]
Mark Rubin has published one book of poems, The Beginning of Responsibility (Owl Creek Press). His work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Ohio Review, Prairie Schooner, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. A past recipient of the Discovery/The Nation Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, he lives in Burlington, Vermont, where he is a psychotherapist in private practice.
