David J. Bauman
David J. Bauman is the author of three poetry chapbooks, including a collaboration with his son Micah James Bauman called Mapping the Valley (Seven Kitchens Press, 2021). Angels & Adultery was also published by Seven Kitchens Press in 2018. David has recent poems in New Ohio Review, Crab Creek Review, and the MacGuffin.


Pigeon Hawk

Be sure that whatever you are is you.
                            —Theodore Roethke

We walk together along the hill’s crest 
when we see them, a flock in unison, 
wings spread, tails cocked, riding updraft.

“Whoa,” we say, believing the impossible—
a cast of falcons in formation, 
an air show discovered just by looking up.

We hold our breath a beat, and then sigh,
“Just pigeons.” Yet, why the letdown?
Was it not how they flew that made us gasp,

or was it what we hoped they’d be?
They pass over us again. The leader,
merlin-dark, her frame commanding,

her flight direct—a feathered bullet,
potent with pent-up power. She snaps
her wings, pinions slicing through air

like scimitars. But her sisters don’t shrink
from her. They relax as she spreads
her wings, comfortable as she lands

and preens there on the wire 
where they’ve saved space for her.
None coo with judgment or disdain.

None are ruffled by her poise.
Not one of them would think to say,
“Get real. You’re just a pigeon.”



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