All these years and I never realized
why I found the mourning dove so interesting
until you pointed out
that morning we stood at the icy window
its resemblance to Robert Penn Warren
the secretive eyes, soft royal neck,
and the mild, unruffled demeanor.
It was the day after a garrulous night
of champagne and shrimp, lamb and red wine,
and we were watching a huddle of them
pecking around in the fresh snow under the feeder
(Pulitzer Prize winners all);
and your comment, so astute and perfectly weird,
made me feel enclosed again in the coded talk
of friendship, that tall pagoda
where companions can sit on pillows
and observe the great China of life filing by
and say whatever comes to mind.
Steam curlicued up from the tea,
a recorded horn was noodling in the background,
and I forget what else was said
unless it was that the long necks of aristocrats
accounted for the popularity of the guillotine.
Then we all said goodbye and you and Louise
waved your way down the path
and drove off in the clear winter light.
But for days afterward, whenever I saw the doves
milling around in the cold
on legs thin as pencil leads,
I found myself thinking of All the King’s Men,
picturing the cover of the paperback
I used to carry around in my jacket pocket.
I even began to wonder, as the sun nudged
the shadows of the bare trees across the snow,
whether the titmouse, fluttering about
in its own tiny sphere of excitement,
did not remind me somewhat of Marianne Moore.
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