MAPPING THE CITY: DC Places, Part II Shirley Cochrane   FALL OF THE MOURNING DOVE Lord help us! you mourning doves are hanging out with pigeons— did they seduce you with their coos and flashy iridescence? Doves, return to your country meadows with your break-the-heart calls—who will weep for you in this break-their-bones city? Go back to where we left you even though we may never join you— we need to know you're waiting there in your paisley garments like the fine clothes great-aunts wear with cultured pearls and tiny gold earrings amde from Papa's cuff links. You have a position to uphold— don't turn into street birds battling for Popeye thighs tossed on filthy sidewalks. Fly now, with your creaking wings and the whir like a mechanical toy— flee before you become like the gulls invading the Metro stations forgetting the hues of the sea.   Shirley Cochrane is the author of Burnsite (WWPH), Family & Other Strangers (The Word Works), and Letters to the Quick/Letters to the Dead (Signal Books). She was a founding member of the Capitol Hill Poetry Group, and taught at Georgetown University's School of Continuing Education and The Writer's Center.   Published in Volume 11, Number 4, Fall 2010.   credits