One-Legged Pigeon
In a flock on Market,
just below Union Square,
the last to land
and standing a little canted,
it teetered—I want to say now
though it's hardly true—
like Ahab toward the starboard
and regarded me
with blood-red eyes.
We all lose something,
though that day
I hadn't lost a thing.
I saw in that imperfect bird
no antipathy, no envy, no vengeance.
It needed no pity,
but just a crumb,
something to hop toward.
Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2013 by Princeton University Press, "One-Legged Pigeon," by Gary J. Whitehead, from A Glossary of Chickens: Poems, (Princeton University Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Gary J. Whitehead and the publisher.