If you had been a hummingbird,
I might have cried.
How wrong I was
to think writing on buildings
is graffiti art, is not
an essay about a quill
tucked between a gutter
and a guffaw.

The snapping turtle
with freshly cut grass
on its shell
moves across the bicycle path,
seemingly unaware
of the scribbled
green message
it leaves behind.

Hey, dead pigeon
on my back doorstep,
I’m sorry
I knew nothing
about how you died,
how you lived.
I confess I haven’t given
your kind much respect.

Your iridescent
emerald and violet
throat feathers
still shimmer
in the right light,
from the right angle.
Your own personal prism
outlasts your final breath.

Hey, dead pigeon,
it’s me again.
I hear a neighbor say
“Poor thing. Maybe, it’s still alive.”

Come morning,
the kind of rain
without hope
of a rainbow
descends on the city.
You are gone.
And I am sorry.
Some would have called you a dove.