the pigeon is having none of your shit

on the edge vertiginous

Image: Anton Schöner, 1906

washed out peach of sunset sky bursts 
like the end of the world
blurring contrails 
mimicking rays gone gray,
blinking machine menacing through
laying down fresh traces
song on radio, language you don’t 
understand, laying down 
thick nostalgia, longing
for a home you’ve never 
known you are 
on the edge vertiginous
prospecting rooftops
current skyscraper’s roots gone
rotten, bedrock shaky,
only a matter of time before
you need to find a new roost
the person next to you
is a pigeon
disinterested
taking none of your shit
this shit is everyday
they flap outrageous
wings and fly away
charting a realtime flight path
you can barely see
let alone comprehend
and stick the landing
safe on some other edge
safe in their ability 
to find a new one
anytime the moment demands

what anatomy
what practice
what sensory apparatus
what self narrative
what social imperative
would allow you to follow them?
how to take in
with these shit eyes 
this dizzying landscape
this 3d map of
terrifying possibility?
how to navigate
this heavy ape body
these useless wings?

your whole species is up here. 
we have nowhere to go.
the tower is crumbling and
we have nowhere to go. 

if you told yourself
you were destined for this moment 
that you contain unique
perspective 
a key to the crisis
would it help?

(ai agents
make more elegance
when you tell them pretend
you’re smarter than 
any human alive. 
maybe you would too.)

if your people thought you Moses,
some prophet to lead them
to a new promised land
would you rise to the occasion?

raise your skinny ape wings.
rehearse flight
until your chest swells
bursts with muscle mass
to keep your solid bones
airborne.
sclotch one eye
then the other
back, back, back beyond temples
until vision
circumnavigates your presence.
perceive depth through motion.
settle into your compass sense—
some iron-tipped cilia,
some inner-ear hemoglobin,
something, it must be there,
orienting you to our
planetary body.
tune your ears
down to the lowest frequencies,
hear, feel that half-hertz 
heartbeat,
the music of mountains,
the timbre of topology
holding you, holding us.

you were made for this moment.
you were made by this moment.
your body is a love letter
to a time, an ecosystem that
no longer exists
and you are becoming
what this one demands.
you can find some new edge.