lucie berjoan
Two pigeons
My downstairs neighbors gutted
their place, stripped it
until our floor shook,
the vitamin bottles dancing
off the shelves. Large men appeared
in the weird alley through
bedroom and bathroom windows
to breathe smoke, call girlfriends, yelling
into cell phones on lunch breaks.
I couldn’t focus or fuck
my girlfriend or myself
with their big voices echoing
so I fixed a thick blanket
to the window
drowned the room
in smudgy light.
A couple weeks after they left,
two pigeons arrived in a flurry
and we watched together,
one of them convulsing
on the shit-smeared nest,
the other nearby, ready
to puke in the grey newborn’s mouth.
Iron particles in their beaks
keep pigeons aligned towards North,
built in compasses pulling them
from place to place rather than memory.
My mom visits later that month,
brings books I left behind,
and I find an old postcard
from you between
the pages. I remember you
homesick as a child,
something I never was.
Lucie Berjoan is a poet and writer based in New York City. Having recently graduated from a Critical Studies MA at the Sandberg Instituut (NL), her work seeks ways of broaching critical and theoretical boundaries. Most recently that has taken the form of queer memoir as poetry and the implications and nuances of what that means. This manifested in a chapbook titled Changing Clothes and a collection of poetry titled Formed, Former Selves. You can find more of her work at her website: https://lucieberjoan.hotglue.me/.
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