You walk to a fork in the road
and in the distance see an albino pigeon
beckoning you on the left side
and a red ox luring you to the right.
The albino pigeon has a certain je ne sais quoi,
so you start walking in that direction,
but your legs have turned to ribbons.
Luckily they are long ribbons,
so you tie them together and lasso yourself
to the tow-bar of a passing truck,
but as you get closer, the pigeon
is somehow distant again.
You notice other pigeons behind bushes
watching, sniggering and smirking,
and realise that this is some kind of joke.
You can hear the red ox moaning
on the breeze, as if to say I told you so,
which is the last thing you need to hear.
So you pull out your mirror from your back pocket
and say: “Candyman, Candyman, Candyman.”
A demon appears behind you and impales you
with a hook, which is far less frustrating.
FOLLOWING THE PIGEON by Vik Shirley | Rose Noir Poetry Reed Diffuser
Vik Shirley is a poet from Bristol living in Edinburgh. Her most recent book is Some Deer (Broken Sleep, 2024) and her first was Corpses (Sublunary Editions, 2020). Her third photo poetry collection, Personal Digitalia, was selected for the inaugural PhotoWorks P5 Photo Poetry Series and will be published Autumn, 2025. Her work has appeared in Poetry London, Magma, PN Review, The Rialto and Dreaming Awake: New Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Vik co-edits Surreal-Absurd for Mercurius and has a PhD in Dark Humour and the Surreal in Poetry from the University of Birmingham.
