Outside the ridge of an aviary two doves sit tail to tail watching the world.

One set of small black eyes hold East

another the western wind.

Like weather vanes pointing in different directions,

the still, quiet, presence of undemanding love

fills their feathers as they ruffle next to the telephone wire covered with old potato vines.

No need to speak,

too busy listening to the angel trumpet on this summer’s hollyhock to say anything at all.

Woven so close together, the gentle valleys of their backs

form a nest…

.. why couldn’t that have been…

us?