archives.

A boy marching up the drive, calling See?
Another diseased reservoir pigeon limp in his hands.
See? As if to say Look at what I have seen.
Not at who I am.

More pointer than hunter. Like his Weimaraner
leashed to the porch each afternoon,
too distracted by the shadows of moving birds 
to be concerned with someone else’s find.

The quiet of this dog. Not its lack of language.

How it’d been immediately hushed 
to avoid upsetting neighbors, sleeping masters.
Willingness to be trained: affection.
Another way of saying See? Or I understand.

Both the dog and boy—their shared knowledge:
where the grandmother stashes licorice 
for blood-sugar emergencies: on the floor
beneath her bed, in an uncovered tin.

Their resistance to taking: a sentence never heard.
We understand. The sentence tirelessly repeated.
More and more pigeons found. 
Few revived, all of them offered.