Grey Sunday afternoon and in a flurry of wing and claw and beak, pigeons are going at it on my dreary balcony.

It looks savage. Bird sex. Dry wicked flapping, the brittle crunch and rip of the dead thing in my pot where they twist and flap in their dalliance. Wings wrap around and a wing wrapped around a wing and beak to beak I try to imagine that it’s gentle, that it’s perhaps pigeon kissing, but it’s all so dry and sharp and pointed. The big dark grey one appears to slap the white one around but, when the white one has a chance to leave, she doesn’t. She paces about. And returns. To the dry, feathery humping and whipping.

Two, now three, now four plump dark grey birds alight on my balcony. And watch. Only watch. They barely move. Are they sentinels of the sex? Are they students? Are they waiting for a turn?

I stop watching. It’s fascinating, yes. But grotesque. And I write this to the sound of wicked flapping pigeon sex.

SS