Downed

A thundering spacecraft arriving out of nowhere, a crashing, crushing presence hurled downward until lamps blink, doors tremble and roof shudders. I count seconds into an electric darkness. The next boom is distant, miles away, just weather, not the menace of an alien attack. Then the next mighty boom sounds like a salvo from a battleship. A fizzing pause, a weak flapping, a scrabble, as if a stricken angel had been downed. Will a rescue mission be mounted, some frontline extraction? No wait...just a thunderstorm. In the daylight will I find a few wing feathers some mangled pigeon parts, relics that must be ferried to the trashcan under the watchful eyes of mourning doves?