the barbary dove pays me a visit
by Autumn Bellan
my vision has always been shifty,
shadow-shackled. when I was little,
my closet’s panels, bright by night light
and white, would become wavy,
black. the dark
spots would shape
themselves into wings,
an angel’s, a devil’s. a spirit
afoot, I would envision an invisible body
beside my bed, pretend I felt presence there too.
when I told my mom,
she believed me.
said sometimes spirits get stuck,
but not quite gone. she closed her eyes, pretended ascendence,
and told me the spirit was a young boy
who died in a car accident. who wanted
to protect me. he scared me; I couldn’t bring
myself to thank him. years later,
the doctor told me the shadows
are schemes of sight. dry-eyed deception,
a trick that feathers at night. it was dark outside
when I looked past the glass of the sliding door,
and saw something
white. hot-flash
like a matchbox flame—six black hole eyes bore into me.
three barbary doves on the balcony
on the edge of real, more and less all at once.
I knew they would poop on the deck, but I didn’t want to shoo
them away. their presence felt sticky,
not quite right but meant to be
in the way that sometimes bad things happen
when nature is disturbed. sometimes, I read,
barbary doves are released as peace
symbols in public ceremonies, but not always,
because they lack a homing
instinct. my mom’s peace
offering has always been spirit,
something to bring us all home. sometimes, I read,
barbary doves carry mutations that make them all white,
and they are used
as stage birds, slave to spirit
wings made fake-celestial like the dead boy
who went thankless above my bed as if he
were a magician’s hand suspending me in sightless sleep.