Pigeon in three breaths

I don’t care if you call me
A rat with wings--
I’ve heard worse.
We gutter dwellers, so misunderstood
I wish I could claim crane,
or lion,
or, Shiva help me,
a Warrior,

but some mornings I have
to curl my bent wing to my heart
and bow down
to the fact of this,
taste the tar as if it’s nectar.

What if you find that your power
animal is an earthworm,
a crafty trilobite,
a small black ant carrying
its dead brother back home?

We imagine grandeur, but the god hands us
a broom and says, here, now this,
And this.
This time around
you are the soiled cousin
of the angels’ white dove,
flying donuts
around that holy spirit,
laughing