The Underwings of War

Notch.

Web.

And then,

down the shaft,

lesser wing coverts

and marginal coverts, and soft,

greater underwing coverts — although never as great

as greater under-primary

coverts, gray-coated

and down-plumped,

trailing

what

might

reveal

a pattern

just over the down

that might support a secrecy.

Launched from double-decker buses, or attic windows,

or the dark roofs at Bletchley Park,

the lesser pigeons,

always first

to find

the

fray,

sport black

metallic

canisters strapped to

matted lapel feathers. And tucked

inside, like Russian dolls, a cipher’s hollow chambers — 

down and down, a Fibonacci

spiral, a paper

nautilus

of words

and

codes

and keys

that shift with

each decipherment.

The bard is in the wand — read space

as shape, read a as i — the key takes subterfuge,

that doubling, double agency

when tomfoolery

is crossed with

rage. But

these

are

simply

carriers,

word-burdened, instinct-

tossed, searching for the perch within

a blasted atmosphere. Find forms, the message says, and

everything will fall in line.

The bird is in the

wind. The loft

is in

the

smoke.