Hearts on Wing
by Nancy Ness

Fly off, my downy pigeon.
Test your anxious wings.
Depart your sheltered nest
And learn what
Unfettered prolusion may bare
For you.
Yet, veer not from the flanks
Of the protective
Homing fold,
Lest your lone flight
Finds you unapprised,
Perched upon an insecure precipice
Descrying inquisitively upon
Delusive entreats from the
Throes of nesting urbanity.
Scintillating lights lure you
Into dark corners
Laden with cardboard blankets,
And tandem benches host
Hackneyed beguiling temptations
Masquerading as apoplectic
Bag dwellers with bulging sacks
Offering deceitful morsels
To obediently kept flocks,
Which peck their way to
Plumper lives ~
Wanting to suckle
Your sweetness, only then to
Cast you aside for
Yet another acquiescent featherling.
Your wanderlust and
Wanton flight may find you
In precarious skies
Where one lone pigeon is
Helplessly succulent prey for that
Gracefully soaring
Predatory she-hawk,
Flyring vulturously in wait
To stalk you and impale you with
Garish black talons,
Consuming you and devouring
Your innocence.
Beware, my sweet pigeon,
Lest you waft astray
And lose sight of the
Safety of your homebound brood,
While this languishing
Domestic nest revivifies its
Imperviously embracing shield ~
A sanctuary for a contented and
Sagacious aviant.
Fly off, my sweet pigeon,
Fly off.
Soar afar.
Fly off.
Alight within the
Sanctity of home.