Father’s Pigeons

My father used to feed the pigeons
That used to gather outside the market
Instead of customers
Only bulgur wheat number three or four
Anything finer and they would
Ignorantly break their beaks
Pecking at their own hunger

Sometimes us kids too
Would grab a fistful of the gold
And scatter it like laughter

When one of them was injured
With a bad wing or foot
Father used to set up a trap
With string and sunflower seeds
And watch his contraption
Split and spit them
From the flock
And then cage it in the basement
Doctoring its spirit
Back to health

But time
Finally gathered at father’s door
And he got sick
He had so many tubes and lines
Feathering from his body

He would never fly again
Caged by age
And fluids built up
Keeping his wings
Too wet

We would gather
Around the bed
Trapped by his final days
As we stared between the bars
Of hardened tears

And when death
Circled around his feet
He scattered a smile
On our faces
Finally caught empty handed
As our hunger fed on his last words
From the palm of the gravestone
Leaving us to wing
The rest of our lives