Unrealistic Enough To Fly Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Thoughts of god aren’t much real consolation
To the pigeons who roost in holes:
That they should live forever,
Flying rats above the city-traffic never imbibing
The fatty waves that sing to them
Like sirens of jumbling tallow by and by.
They weep when they lay down,
When starvation doesn’t occupy everything.
They seem to realize who they are,
That they don’t have fists to meet each other
To settle arguments,
Or palms to spread real marriages of church
And nurseries.
Then their eyes waver like real flames
That cry a curious envy,
Because they most especially want you on a soft
Bed, whispering their curious pigeon names,
And maybe they even hate you,
A woman not for pigeons, all legs and pistons
Well kept in her union of firehouses and
Expeditious paramedics,
A woman who the real men love
Openly on the slick throats moaning
Up to the gothic vestibules, the pigeons
As envious and flickering as a roost of candles
Smoldering shelved in their holes,
Cursing the mistaken trucks of god for making
Them unrealistic enough to fly.