It is impossible to shake off the pigeons

from their dogged grasp onto everything,

the loft, the terrace, the roof-

the loft back again.

That blue-grey huddle,

that wooden whir always wheeling.

Nothing can make it give,

to leave and not look back.

Haven’t I chased enough ones to know

that a stone would only send them so far

as to half-moon right back?

Have I not wondered so much more

if they wouldn’t, just for once

in a long while,

surf the wind that blows

or perch on a branch or ledge,

not for anything else, but simply because

they liked the way it caught the sun?

Is that what I should have done too?