Pigeon
Shoot
[P]igeons . . . are among the strongest fliers of all
birds.
Dumped
in a grayish pile off to one edge
of
a narrow field where more trap boxes wait—
the
acrid breeze plays with their feathers as
a
lone gunshot echoes across the ridge,
followed
by boyish laughter at a pair
of
shattered wings, heaved back in the air.
Then
one more shot, as she attempts to fly,
her
mate, fluttering slower now in the grass.
As
Vasserot
When
it happens, no one will be prepared.
On
a clear bright day when pretty much all seems calm,
and
much of the world slugs on without a care,
the
sirens will scream too late; and the first bomb
might
not be all so different from the last.
The
experts, those still left, will preen and say
how
they had warned that this might come to pass,
how
no one really heeded them, the way
such
blinded by foresight have always, who
focus
their eyeless gaze. And while bereft
of
anything approaching wisdom's grace,
then
millions may even pray to Whom they'd left
for
dead some time ago, frantic to face
the
unfaceable—that nothing we do will do.
Mark Mansfield's work has appeared in many
publications, including Blue Mesa Review,
The Evansville Review, Fourteen Hills, Gargoyle, Good Foot, The Ledge, Magma
Poetry, Potomac Review, Salt Hill, Tulane Review, and Unsplendid. He holds an
M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins, and lives in upstate New York where he
teaches.
