Upon the sidewalk, a cheesecake thickens.
Softly crumbling inside like lost hope,
the surface remains a frigid-smooth shape,
white, lined with cracked chocolate lace patterns. Time
passes quietly, nothing but the wind
calls for the cake’s solid whole to give way.

And behold, a grey pigeon on its way!
Its bobbing walk slows as the air thickens
with bleak weather. An icy shift of wind,
and the bird trembles, yet stands with vain hope;
it can never fly. What use in a time
when the moon is just a splintery shape?

The pigeon can hardly begin to shape
its reaction as it is blown back, way
deep, sinking through the stiff cheesecake of time.
Farther it slips, its noiseless anguish thickens
‘til the fragile wings bend in cream-smothered hope
and all things pause to hear the hum of the wind.

Raindrops drum faintly on the sidewalk, wind
disperses bits of brittle crust. The shape
of the cheesecake, broken in twisted hope,
somehow hugs the pigeon in a secure way,
and though the prospect of collapse thickens,
the grey bird’s faithful spirit resists time.

And as the sprinkle of rain ends in time
for the will of the gently ruthless wind
the cake eases its strain, the wing thickens.
Warm cheese quietly mends the bent shape,
the grey plumes dry and spread in such a way
that they return to frosty white in hope.

The cake yields through its cracks - the wings, in hope
that the bird will share the workings of time.
Hopping out, careening slightly, it finds way,
meeting concrete with feet unmoved by the wind.
It loosens its wings for the world it will shape
as the stripe of colors in the sky thickens.

In the way and knowledge of time, the bird
Eyes the cake’s coarse, pure shape that thickens slowly
And with sound hope, it follows the wind.