Poem by Jefferson Carter

SQUAB
The poem was first published in The Chiron Review               


Driving to yoga this morning, I saw
a flock of pigeons raveling & unraveling
above the palm trees. Our city’s poet laureate 
writes about pigeons as avatars of love.
What did I see? Protein on the wing.


Our laureate compares feral pigeons 
to street people, both declared unsanitary 
urban pests, the birds’ bodies contaminated 
by heavy metals, but whose aren’t?


I want to be a good person, stop child abuse,
take back the night, fight poverty.  I’m 
ashamed I eat when I’m not hungry.


No more memes on Facebook, no more 
feel-good marches, let’s learn to mend nets, 
scald feathers, to gut & to spatchcock, let’s
deliver tons & tons of pigeon meat to shelters 
& soup kitchens, saying, “Enjoy!  It’s squab!”

Jefferson Carter has poems in such journals as Barrow Street, Cream City Review, and Rattle.  Chax Press published Get Serious: New and Selected Poems, chosen as a Southwest Best Book of 2013 by the Tucson/Pima County Public Library.  In 2020, Presa Press released his eleventh collection, Birkenstock Blues.
He lives in Tucson with his wife Connie.  He’s a passionate supporter of Sky Island Alliance, a regionally-based environmental organization. 

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