Prettier Than It Had Any Right to Be

I was already rehearsing

what I should have said —

the line that would have landed,

made you feel the weight of it —

when the pigeon stopped me.

Not stopped me, exactly.

It was already dead.

One wing lifted toward the curb

like a question that gave up halfway.

The rain had been at the feathers

and the streetlight was doing something

embarrassing to them —

greens, that specific purple,

the colors of a bruise

that's moving toward healed.

I stood there longer than I should have.

The gutter ran cold beside my shoes.

My phone still warm in my coat

from where we'd been not saying

the things.

It shouldn't have been beautiful.

That's the part I keep coming back to —

that it shouldn't have.