Mourning doves

For days, every-which-way I go ...

mourning doves. Billing & cooing

on telephone lines. Filling trees

like a muted cacophony

of crows. This morning one wooing

pair flew overhead, their lithe wings

scything the March air into strips

of sound - a flywheel wanting oil.

They make me want to lace on skates

again, for the first time in years:

to scrape that stultifying sheath

of rust from dull, distempered blades

& - scintillating thought! - the love

of my life on my arm once more,

to slice streams of sky-white ribbon

from a sequin-rich sheet of ice.

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