He tells you while you were dozing,
he had taken up the opera binoculars,
parted the gauzy Chinese curtains,
and looked through the kitchen window,
over the watered tea roses
to watch the doves pecking at the sprinkled seed
you had tossed last evening;
oh then he draws closer
to you on the pillow, as he whispers
how he paused and paused,
not believing the sight
of one small dove gingerly
feeding the other; he shows you this
with his mouth pursing pursing
like kissing, as if he had a tiny kernel between
his lips, so that when he does leave,
you fold the summer comforter
down, and rest there, rest in the sweetness
of the hour until his footsteps softly
come back -- shuffling, waddling
as if cautious of the cat,
and the door almost magically
opens as he hands you a blue plate of
egg whites on rye and ribbons
of heavenly bacon, so that you think
of the doves again
about who will exactly feed whom
later, when it comes to that, who in the dawn,
before one takes flight.
Copyright 2009. Leonore Wilson. All rights reserved.