We spend the evening chewing tar, block on groaning
block. City like dark, boxy clouds, where we spot Venus

who spots us too: a single eye that sends the birds
to roost. We’ll be blue light again tonight, arrhythmic

to the sun. The powerlines above our car are four staves
strung across the streaky peach where thirty, forty

pigeons perch: squatted crochets, feathered minims
fluffing out their necks. The birds stir as wind

plucks the powerlines, turns their throats to flutes
piping late lilac light while pollen argues with

the petrol. They ruffle, restless to return timbre, tone
to the overpass and concrete. We don’t hear them

coo: those soft, jostled waters. We are grounded,
burning rubber. Then a flurry in the rearview: thirty,

forty pigeons all unwinding off the wires, note-heads
unspooled from stem and stave—dappled chords,

loosened music, scatter,
scatter off.