Some Images Never Change

Plump pigeons
Swimming their plumpness away
Cackling at me
Every day I walk down my stairs
Stop laughing
The feathered ones
Are a peanut gallery
Never satisfied with the new day
And its strangers
Never satisfied
Unless they humiliate
Two males holding down female
Under an April sun
Releasing their posterity
In savage ways
And she waddles away
As if it is an annual event
A family reunion

The Provo River
That cuts through Raintree
Like a chisel
Is the duck's bathtub
The rolling grass
Surrounding the river
Is their bed
The balconies that enclose the habitat
Are their gods
Feeding them
On a divine timetable
Not based upon the birds' hunger pangs
But on holy convenience

Every now and then
I, too, slide my chamber door open
Step-out onto the green terrace
And shower manna
To the lost tribe of feathered ones
Yet, I do not blindly throw my gifts to all
I pick and choose
Which walking feather ball will receive
The Indian runner with mohawk
The only one of the bunch
Pleases me
Here
And do not share with the rest
The blue burned crowns of the mallards
Capture infrequent crumbs
For the white one with bloody red hairdo
Is my favorite
He is my Joseph of Egypt
The rest are his brothers
One coat for the unique one
All others must go cold

The bread falling from my hand
The thoughts falling from my mind
Remind me of fifth grade
My family was affluent at the time
Dad's luck with not being caught by police
Was running hot
Like a crap's player on a streak
When you hit it, you just run with it
He always told me
We had so much money
We kept our change in Cuban coffee cans
Cafe Bustel
One hundred percent pure coffee
Yellow and red
With Spanish writing covering it
Heavy with silver and copper
Mostly circular portraits of America's first president
Mom saved those golden-red cans in the kitchen
One cupboard was full of them
She scooped out cafe molido
Feeding the mildest of Dad's many addictions
And replaced the grounds
With the coins
If I ever needed extra money
To see a movie
Or play a video game
I formed my hand like a shovel
And scooped out a bucket full of change
Craning the chinking cash
Into my front corduroy pocket
Closed lid
Shut cupboard
Jumped off counter
Out door to wherever

One afternoon after school
After Mrs. Williams' class
After kickball
After winning the game for the team
After watching the Challenger blast off
On TV in our classroom
After seeing televised death
We played with my GI Joes

I was Snake-Eyes
I was always Snake-Eyes
Max was Destro
Jeff was Cobra Commander
Billy was Storm Shadow
They tried to gang-up on Snake-Eyes
In a conspiracy to overthrow
GI Joe's Headquarters
But Snake-Eyes was too powerful
He wouldn't die
He lived over and over again
He survived their bullets
He flew away from them
He went to the kitchen for a Coke
Destro, Cobra Commander, and Storm Shadow
Followed Snake-Eyes
Time out
Max, Jeff, and Billy got Cokes, too

As they slurped and guzzled
Their red cans
I climbed onto the counter
And stood above them on the breakfast bar
Hear ye! Hear ye!
Today the king will come before you
And grant you life
I then opened the cupboard adjacent to me
Peeled off the plastic lid of a coffee can
Dug my fingers
Into the cold, dirty, metallic coffee grounds
And tossed handfuls of coins into the air
Watching them pelt the heads of Max, Jeff, and Billy
Brown and silver eyes winked at me
As I thrust more and more handfuls into the air
My friends scattered
And scratched
And smiled greedy smiles
Gorging elementary hands with money crumbs
The twinkling rain reminded me
Of an exploding spaceship
Shooting sparks and smoke and spirits
Into the sky
And falling falling falling
On the ocean of ducks below

Some images never change