Wild Pigeons

I wait on the corner, sitting on a short wall that encompasses a small concrete yard in front of the old church. The little dot on my screen that represents Katie as she rides her scooter back from her studio creeps across the map, and a cool breeze blows as dusk approaches.

There’s a commotion behind me, and I turn to find a trio of pigeons regarding me warily, as if I’m the one who just showed up from nowhere, and not them. I think of a poem by Mary Oliver, where she’s talking about just looking at something, not trying to say something fancy, just looking, so I’ll say that one of them was missing some toes, but the other one, with a black and white mottled head, his feet were pink, and perfect.