Dirty; The Storm by Robert McDonald

Dirty

The little girl holding

her mother’s hand in

Times Square

says, “I just want to

touch one, mama.”

The mother pulls at

the girl’s arm, pulls

her away from

the strutting

pigeon—

“You can’t touch

a pigeon, honey,

they’re dirty.” “But

I want to,” says

the girl. I want to.”

“You can’t

touch a pigeon.”

And why not, the nunnery

of soft grey feathers,

the violet

sheen on

its neck, the beauty

of the barred wings,

the expected and usual

uniform. “You

don’t want to

touch a pigeon.”

the woman, big

sunglasses, a pile

of blondish hair, waves

her stub of cigarette in

the flock’s direction. “Trust

me, they’re so dirty,

they’re not even

birds.”

The Storm

You missed out on the first warm day of the year, when the breeze smells like air just out of an oven, in a kitchen where the gods bake a field of grass. See also: the first storm, when the sky turns green, and roils, and small town sirens blare the warning, while worried aunts look out the back window, examining the sky. I cannot be happy about your departure, and I cannot forget your face on the gurney, your bruised face, a sheet tucked in around the back of your head. I cannot pause, rewind, take back my last words to you, I was angry then, I am angry at you now, for never again knowing the pleasure of the city, after a rainfall makes the air smell like worms, while lightning still flashes in the distance. The storm moved on the way storms swiftly do.