It’s today. Accordingly, a poem
Wild Oats
Every day I see from my window
pigeons, up on a roof ledge – the males
are wobbling gyroscopes of lust.
Last week a stranger joined them, a snowwhite
pouting fantail,
Mae West in the Women’s Guild.
What becks, what croo-croos, what
demented pirouetting, what a lack
of moustaches to stroke.
The females – no need to be one of them
to know
exactly what they were thinking – pretended
she wasn’t there
and went dowdily on with whatever
pigeons do when they’re knitting.
Norman MacCaig, from A Man in my Position 1969
