To a Pigeon in Paris Your iridescent breast deep purple, silver, magenta fast flutter shimmering mother of pearl the same as shells in the sea Your red-rimmed, dull stupid eye senseless & opaque, your rhythmic beak peck at bakery crumbs regular as hands on a clock Autumn yellow leaves sticking to wet cobblestone people draped on bent cane chairs faces to the sun drinking coffee and wine Above all the single flap of your wings against cold cobalt sky— the supreme sound of it, one fast clap way too close to me, mere inches from my face Thank you for your ordinary, ideal flight allowing my tired heart instinct to alight
Julia Caroline Knowlton PhD MFA is a poet and Professor of French at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta. As a young poet, she won an Academy of American Poets Prize. In 2018 she was named a Georgia Author of the Year and in 2022, her work was publicly installed as part of the Georgia Poetry in the Parks project. The author of five books, her poems have been published in journals such as ONE ART, Trouvaille Review, Roanoke Review and Rust & Moth.
Amethyst Review 
Very evocative. I recently saw a garden warbler and am amused by the field book descriptions of it as ‘nonedescript’ – this being its significant feature!
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