Dear Family Chronicle of a Flock of Pigeons,

There are so few pigeon

heroes, or dastards,

and also, I think,

so few affairs, since

each and every character

mates

for life—the history

of pigeons

is a chronicle

without wars—sure, a falcon

grabs a sacrifice now

and again,

but on the whole this

is the tale of how you rose,

a chorus on

a January morning,

wings nearly

white against a bank

of darker cloud, and I

read that chapter,

thankful to see

the fog of my breath

while I waited

on the train, nearly

able in that moment

to love my lifetime the way

a flock of pigeons loves

to be silver in a flash

of sky, dark

then silver.

Pickles

I wrote a poem on the train this morning. I'll wait a few days to look at it again, with new eyes. I have a feeling it's not very good. But that's ok. It felt right, to have my pen and notebook in front of me, and feel like the words were flowing out smoothly. The other day I taught a writing workshop with two little girls in the bookstore where I work. They were sisters, and the youngest wanted to write a story with chapters. I took dictation, each chapter was named for an animal and a sentence or two long. "Chapter Two. Tigers. The tiger is very pretty and wants to go to the store. His favorite food is pickles. His name is Pickles, too."

I had been talking about words, about falling in love with individual words; we wrote words down on post-its and put them on a word-tree. I think I knew right there, writing down the word "pickles" and smiling because who could not love that word, that I was back into poetry. Like swimming again, like water, like waves. It's been a while, and I felt great, diving back into the word pool.

The Later Cornell

Look up at the sun risen golden over
greystone two-flats; rest your eyes

on two windows at the corner of Clark
and Berwyn, each with one word

in white letters in the middle of the glass:
"Ballroom" and "Tango." When the world

is dimmed by nostalgia and longing,
there you will find me, said Joseph Cornell.

When you feel the smooth clasp
of an impossible obsession--ballerina,

opera star, lanky boy in tattered blue jeans
who rides your morning train, there,

says Mr. Cornell, I will be, with a scrap
of velvet, a newspaper clipping

from before the war, a cardboard cutout
of green parakeet.