MAYDAY

A Dovecote at a Medieval Manor House Ruin in Oxfordshire
by Stephen Gibson

Contributed By:

 

Two workers were repairing it the day we visited—

one worker passing thatch to one on a ladder;

our friend Judy, a photographer, said

this was a favorite place for her:

the dovecote once bred

 

pigeons and doves for the dinner table: chambers

inside—when the manor house was inhabited—

filled with squabs and bird mating-pairs.

What happened?  Why had it ended?

The two workers repairing

 

the dovecote now weren’t doing this for some heirs—

but a heritage foundation: all of the heirs were dead.

Judy took a photo of my wife, me, and her

with the two workers.

 

Filed Under: Poetry

Further Reading

A TERRIFYING DEATH by Daniil Kharms (translated by Alex Cigale)

Once upon a time, a man, feeling hungry, sat at the table and ate cutlets. Beside him sat his wife, rambling on about the cutlets not containing enough pork. Nevertheless he ate, and ate, and ate, and ate, and ate, until he sensed somewhere in the pit of his stomach a morbid heaviness. In that […]

The Friend Seekers
by Siamak Vossoughi

This story was nominated for The Best of the Net. The boy and the girl were watching the father working in the backyard. It was Saturday afternoon and the sky was gray in a way that seemed like Saturday afternoon was always going to be gray from here on out. The girl was to go […]