Animal Lover

A girl clutches a pigeon against her chest, her arms crossed over it in order to keep it restrained. It looks out with its beady eye, forlorn. I marvel at her caring for an injured creature so despised by others. Particularly because it was one of those grubby dark grey ones frequently found in London. I think of her nursing it back to health, kept in a cardboard box on a balcony or windowsill. Its lucky she found it.