Birds

Young men floated
up and down the streets
like pigeons,
roosting on this corner
or that and then
moving on,
all of it benumbed
with idleness
and vaguely ominous.

— Justin Cronin, "The Passage"

Women

Nothing would have surprised him,
because he knew that women are just like men
in their secret adventures:
the same strategems,
the same sudden inspirations,
the same betrayals without remorse.
-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Love in the Time of Cholera"