Originally published in The Flintlock Issue 2023. Received an Honorable Mention for the Boatright Poetry Award. Link to The Flintlock's website here: https://www.nwuflintlock.com/
There is beauty in this bird, Dad.
We both see it, I know. Blue stomach
of feathers, light feet, they make no
sound. Brilliant external guts, morphing cysts,
it’s called a wattle. You told me the official
name. Tell me, look, I haven’t forgotten yet.
Look at the way it flies! slow, paper boat
corralling the air around it. It twists.
Born with skin stretched so far away
from bones that it simply drifts the draft.
Look, Dad. It’s calling for something–
–a lost wife, friend, who’s stringed across
a steel hood. A warning: who’s nearby.
I see words in eyes. You see words in ribs.
Tell me its name. Tell me, it abandons us
here on the sidewalk. Tell me, I will forget.
