Table of Contents

Editor’s Introduction • Maria Schrater

An Index of Feathered Elsewheres • Oladosu Michael Emerald
A Gannet’s Tale • Chandra Gair
Swallow Song • Ivy Beavan
A Wake of Vultures • Kate Boyes
Peristeronic • F. J. Bergmann
When the Swans Remembered the Stars • Gloria Ogo
Canary • Ian Li
Perspectives From Underneath an Empty Parking Garage • Stephanie Jones
The Continuing Genetic Memories of Certain Strains of Gravity-Resistant Laying Hens Result in a Reluctance to Pip (Hatch) and a Further Resistance to Being Placed in Protective Packaging Prior to Dispatchment to the Colonies. • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
The Perfect Bird • Michael Colonnese
What Does God Have to Do with This • Evgeniya Dineva, translated from the Bulgarian by Hannah Ivanov
Kolibri • Jacqueline West
Argot Of Exiled Daughters • Hannan Khan
I Swallowed a Heron • Lora Berg
Eagle-Eyed • Nico Martinez Nocito
the thermistor of my body as a drone • Ismail Yusuf Olumoh
The Last Nightingale • Stephen Jackson

An Index of Feathered Elsewheres

I. [Glossary of Beaks]
Beak:
  •   the needle God forgot to pull from time’s torn hem
  •   code for exile, clicking under glass
  •   architecture of want

II. [Footnote to a Migratory Argument]
A gull arrives in the shape of a question.
My body is not a coast, but the memory of salt.

III. [From the Handbook of Avian Possession]
To become bird: swallow dawn.
To remain human: fail.

IV. [Psalms for Hollow Bones]
Psalm 3.6: The air is a faith too large for lungs.
Psalm 3.7: The nest is a hymn undone by wind.

V. [Errata]
In the third dream, the bird was not a bird.
It was you, unlettered, skyborne, returning.
No one believed me. So I grew wings where my grief had slept.

—Oladosu Michael Emerald

A Gannet’s Tale

On a hard cliff ledge 
a birdman found me 
surrounded by shards of pale eggshell
on a bed of seaweed and grass.
He took me by the throat
and plucked the wild from me.
Then he bathed me in the magical waters 
of Lochan-sìth,
in the deep turquoise waters 
of Lochan-sìth.

And he christened me Sùlaire.

In a lone stone house
he made me his bride
and lined my eyes with heavy black kohl
painting the lids in cobalt blue.
I wore black sealskin gloves
and a long misty veil.
The train of my gown billowed white like sea foam
in a tempest,
or waves breaking over rocks
in a tempest.

And I called myself Sùlaire.

On a hard cliff’s edge,
unexpected gales
lifted the birdman, and he wailed
tasting salty island justice.
Then I felt tufts of down 
and feathers bursting forth.
It’s such a prickly feeling and — oh, it hurts
down to my bones,
I didn’t think it would hurt
down to my bones.

But I am truly Sùlaire. 
And now I am free.

—Chandra Gair

Swallow Song

          to the ones bound for the window pane

The day I died, the world cracked 
cold and open. Not related to my
incident, of course. It was just that morning, 
there was something about that morning.

I woke and sang and saw the world as it was,
fishbone thin – snapping silver in the light
of the sun. It was a beautiful morning. 
And it was the last.

And I loved it, without any knowledge of
its lastness. Loved it belly up and twitching,
fluttering under the press of the knife. Not
a real knife, mind you.

Just the knife that appeared that morning-
cut sharp across all the waters of the world.
I saw the lines and wanted to slip through
them. Into the incisions and past it all.

It was the first day, as it was the last,
that I’d ever wanted that, that slippage. To move 
beyond the air and the not-air. An upwards animal 
wanting, suddenly, the downwards motion.

Though before I could turn and pitch 
and swoop, the light, like it had heard me, began 
to shift and rise. Uncurling from the sutures, steady-
handed, brushing each steel corner it met.

My wanting rose with it, a liquid
voice warbling. I watched and sang 
the song of points converging, lines 
melting. The light drew into itself, became a

pin-prick amongst the soft grey. A self-
sized sun, a star at my level. And I
suppose, now, you know the rest of
the story.

But I’ll tell you this. Icarus had it right.
To love the light as it meets you,
that is enough salve for the burn.

—Ivy Beavan

A Wake of Vultures

my split skull leaks     while crushed arms sprout
sleek iridescent feathers     they flutter through
semi-lucid dreams     create those sultry thermal
streams gem-splashed turquoise dragonflies love
to ride     insects glide through cranium    crawl
across slick tangle of gray matter     glitter-bomb
thoughts     green   blue   burnish the blood-brain barrier
my mind glows     copper-hot     lying here 
on jagged stones   ribs ripped open by cliff-top
fall     bleeding out     wondering who is oozing 
that delicious vibe     that too-cool tickle
trickling down my broken spine     sparking
splayed nerves     radiating     bloodless fingers
tingling while turning into talons     snap to beat
of acid jazz     raspy alto sax plays in muddled head
I tell you    vultures can be a dodgy lot     always
got some shady hustle in the works     some dark
deal going down with death     I never knew the
score before they flew over     circled     settled
on me for a feast     pee-splashing scrawny legs 
to kill germs     damn that stuff stings     until
it doesn’t     sensations cease now     I can see
unfeathered bird skulls bob about bowels but   
can’t feel   they dig my essence     peck out the
best parts of me     purplish lumps of liver     bits
of stringy heart muscles     kidney slivers     beaks
shattering bones like sledgehammers     slurping
marrow with bloody painted smiles     clouds
darken     world starts to go foggy when my eyes
film up     young vulture pulls away from pious
congregation preying over me     locks her talons
in mine     spreads black velvet wings     come
she says     leaving nothingness behind     I fly

—Kate Boyes

Peristeronic

There were those of us who fed them,
and those who would not feed them,
who loathed them, who averred
that they were filthy harbingers
of disease—they were absolutely
right, as it happened. Then also,
there were those of us who claimed
to see the future (but never this 
particular future) in fanned patterns
of murmuration as they rose up
whirling into the skies and fell 
back to the ground like scatters
of faded petals or dead leaves.
Their sober plumage, mostly gray
and darker gray, set an example
of modesty, we all thought; a faint
iridescence at each neck (so often 
manifesting only in a narrow angle 
of light) being symbolic of the soul 
each of us bore within; their wings, 
even more so. As sickness spread 
and we died in suppurating droves, 
they became frantic, swarming 
those who ventured into the open,
eclipsing their faces in a flurry
of infected feathers. For how long 
will they fly and roost in the empty 
temples our cities will become?

—F. J. Bergmann

When the Swans Remembered the Stars

The swans have begun to dream again.
Not of lakes or reeds or grain,
but of black suns
and bone-colored moons
pulling at the tendons of their wings.

Each winter, they forget.
They return to the frozen rivers,
eyes clouded with static,
feet blood-warm and blistered.
They nest in graveyards now,
in the ribs of machines
long buried beneath the snow.

But some nights,
under a sky too still,
they lift their heads
and scream.

No one knows why the swans scream.

The old lore says
they came from elsewhere—
not evolved, but exiled.
Banished from a war of light
where wings were weapons,
and memory, a curse.

Their songs once mapped the cosmos.
Each note a coordinate.
Each cry a warning.

Now they sing in fragments,
like a radio tuned wrong,
and children wake with nosebleeds
and visions of burning skies.
Some draw strange constellations
on the walls in charcoal,
stars that do not belong
to any sky we've named.

Last migration,
a swan flew straight into the sun.
No deviation.
No cry.
Just ash.

And somewhere beneath the ice,
in the drowned chambers
of a forgotten observatory,
the red light blinks again.

The swans have begun to dream.
This time,
they will not forget.

—Gloria Ogo

Canary

A canary descends a mine shaft, singing 
of caged sunshine and neverending autumn, 
voice like rolling water, scared but heartbeat aflutter, 
a star twinkling madly at the edge of a black hole—
like you or me leaping from a plane with eyes closed, 
unsure if a parachute is attached, invisible hands 
in the darkness seeking our hands or our throats—
Schrödinger’s bird, simultaneously ash and phoenix.

—Ian Li

Perspectives From Underneath
an Empty Parking Garage

Two doves mourning lost 
grass. Cradling 
branches. 
Everything but a broken 
heart.

—Stephanie Jones

The Continuing Genetic Memories of Certain Strains of Gravity-Resistant Laying Hens Result in a Reluctance to Pip (Hatch) and a Further Resistance to Being Placed in Protective Packaging Prior to Dispatchment to the Colonies.

beak-shaped Fibonacci sonnet

We
don’t
envy
chicks. We won’t
joyously emerge
from the 3-D printed shells that
are the world, all we will ever need. We have no urge
to forsake yeast based yolk, soy albumen. What
do we want with new birth wet wings
and uncurled spines? We
loathe the things
we’ll be:
pipped,
shipped.

—Juleigh Howard-Hobson

The Perfect Bird

Small innocent children 
are starving tonight
somewhere on planet Earth
but because the preservation 
of our nation's religious and political heritage
was deemed equally important
we'd been hired to spray paint
a hard-frozen twenty-plus-pound Butterball 
with a can of Rust-oleum's 
umber-colored, rusty-metal primer
so that shot under the arc lights 
of a TV-studio kitchen and through 
the open aperture of a wide-angle lens,
the spray-painted carcass
would look like a perfectly browned bird 
but without the stretched skin
or cosmetic imperfections 
that would likely result 
even if we'd had all the time in the world 
and the desire to roast it.
And perhaps that also explains why 
our seemingly indifferent cameraman
very deliberately smoked 
his mentholated cigarette down to the filter
but hesitated before tucking 
the smoldering end
under a spray-painted wing,
so that it would appear 
as if a wisp of fragrant steam
were slowly rising from the feast.

—Michael Colonnese

What Does God Have to Do with This 

translated from the Bulgarian by Hannah Ivanov

Snatch a feather from a crow and hide it
in your wings
Use it the next time you fly.
*
To see a crow brings bad luck.
Two represent happiness.
Six signal death.
*
If you’re always flying backwards you’re bound to get lost.
*
You were nine when your father took you to the square behind the apartment building to teach you how to shoot.
*
Ozulum is a species of bird that has only one wing and flies backwards.
*
Something strikes your wing and you plummet to the ground.
*
The bird species Ozulum does not exist.
*
The first time you tried to fly you confused the sky for the ocean.
*
One of the statements written here is not true. 
*
A crow taught Cain how to bury his brother.
*
Would you follow your father if you knew you may not return home?

—Evgeniya Dineva

Kolibri

(German): Hummingbird
The term used to command execution squads into action during the purge of 1934

Everything 
undone
unraveled
unbegun
the matter 
your mothers 
knitted
so carefully
the nests 
where you grew
precision 
within precision
tiny eggshells
tiny cracks
it’s so simple 
to take things 
apart
that any little boy 
can do it
with his rubber boots
and his sticky fists
and they all know
how easy it is 
to slip in 
on something 
asleep
to crush a cradle 
into kindling
to take the treasure 
of something 
not yet finished
and finish it first.

—Jacqueline West

Argot Of Exiled Daughters

they unleashed the falcon after her — talon lacquered in gps dye
feathers coded to ancestral honor, slicked in rusted oil
eyes mastered on shame-shaped silhouettes; beak still crimson from a previous daughter
her sari’s pallu was a cerise smear across the desert; she fled like betrayal had bred incisors
like love had no lingo left but silence; her breath breezed in stabs; her ankles split
a tampon string flapping like a ripped flag; the falcon soared & the falcon grasped

intuited the perfume of flowers which scented no
versed in the aroma of unwashed hair braided in rebellion
aware of the scream imprisoned between molars
conscious of the savour of disobedience gooey as menstrual clot
it struck her shadow first; tore light clean off her; articulated in wingbeats: backtrack
come to the haven; but she grinned — lips bloodied from gnawing secrets
guava nipples hard from wind; thighs undone from mounting erected abashment
sand glued to the juices between her legs

she turned; opened her jaws & spoke in bird
not mimicry; not prayer but the argot of exiled daughters; a syntax feathered in fuck you
the aerial assassin trembled; its eyes blurred like recollection molting
it forsook the leash of code; forsook the honor in its programming & remembered aviation
she crawled up on its back like the first lass to cruise myth raw — no permission; no saddle
just blooming bruises & a gasp that wouldn’t quit & the predator obeyed 

above them, the sol undid itself — a blister stripped open in the heavens
below them, the gps shrieked nonsense; spewing coordinates like filthy spit
falcon & girl, girl & falcon; two blasphemies in one orbit
streaking through nimbus like oozing wounds
back in the village, a mum cracked an egg that haemorrhaged grey pus
a bloody bro broke the mirror & beheld beaks in his bleeding gums

the falcon still glides; pinions soot-black with vengeance
trailing gusts that odor like scorched silk & seared hymens
it swoops over checkpoints, over curfews, over weddings
drifts quills morphed like middle fingers on rooftops of sleeping bastards
it circles honor killing like a prophet without benevolence
sharpens its peckers on patriarchal bones; shits on tombs that once demanded submission

sometimes it cages her paramours with bite marks; it fetches her knives slick with monikers
sometimes it plummets fresh flesh, still twitching, pleated in sacred garlands
but always, always it elevates her to sky & she bangs it open with wings

—Hannan Khan

I Swallowed a Heron 

Now, this night heron keeps watch 
inside me with copper eyes, 
even while I sleep. His torso 
pushes against my ribs, wanting out. 

Heavy spotted wings edge against 
my blades from underneath but
my skin won’t split. In daytime, 
he stiffens my spine straighter 
and I brush a tuft of hair high 
to resemble a crest. We don’t both fit 
in one body and I should have thought 
of this, but the desire to lift off 

overcame—so here he hunches, cloaked,
balanced on a right leg tucked in mine,
the left now feeling featherlight.
The sky bears down like gray wings 

folding. He must long to dip his beak 
in the cove where I found him, choose 
wriggly fish, but the water of me is locked 
in veins and cells. He had real business 

in his world. Now, he is trapped in mine.
I flap my arms, as I meant for us to be
aloft—and even if I regret what I did,
the fantastical still might happen.

—Lora Berg

Eagle-Eyed

They say a baby’s eyes should be
the same cozy shade as a well-lit sky. 
I was born tawny-eyed and screaming, 
            my voice a terrible, trilling pitch
            that sent a doctor running from the room. 

Eagle-eyed, they called me. Even then, 
            my gaze was as sharp as a bird’s. 

My eyes first fell out in first grade. 
The sockets were too loose, the balls
            too small. My teacher called me

a mutant. 
She got fired the next day. 

The doctors had no explanation
            for the bird’s eyes set into
            my flawed and human head. 
They did, however, offer a temporary solution 
for my eyeballs’ unnatural slipperiness,
            which I’ve used my whole life since: 
every night, I pop them out, 
            one at a time, 
            and rub a cloth with vinegar over their glassy edges. 

Eagle-eyed, they called me. Back then, 
            my gaze was as sharp as a bird’s. 

My eyes are failing now. Their surface
clouds white with cataracts that no amount of polishing
            can wipe away. 
The doctors say I’ve outlived an eagle’s normal lifespan, 
            that their eyes don’t know how to last this long. 

I respond that I’m thirty-five. 

Treatments are proposed. New eyes, human-
            oid, this time—transplants, glass. 
I take the pamphlets they hand me and nod along
and throw them out when I leave the building. 
They give me more, and more, until I 
            give in. 

The new eyes are sticky and sag in my face. 
I haven’t torn into myself like this since I was five years old,
            and those eagle’s eyes still felt wrong to me. 
These eyes are pale blue and 
infuriating. My clouded vision now is far worse
than the cataracts ever were. 

Eagle-eyed, they called me, once, 
back when I saw the world
            through an eagle’s keen-eyed gaze. 

I envy every bird
            above me in the sky.

—Nico Martinez Nocito

the thermistor of my body as a drone

Question: 
              What temperature does my body 
              report when grief floods the circuit?

              my joints report a fever of 40°C— / 
              the body glitching on grief. & the 
              thermistor in my throat bristles:
              resistance exceeding / the
              recommended voltage.

in this poem, you can call me a drone 
              but i dream in feathers—
              my wings clipped to a script. 
              my body aches after i fly 
              200 kilometres away from home, 
              searching for water. I return  
              with a payload of naira notes—  
              my mother’s voice, a satellite  
              I orbit but never reach. 
              & like a phantom with a blade, 
              stress carves into every joint 
              of my body. i can tell you that 
              my body is sho(u)ting—
                            for help. 
                                          for pain. 
              but what good is a bird that can’t sing  
                            except to report the coordinates  
                                                        of its own collapse?

in another portrait, i stare into the mirror 
              of the glitching second hand of a clock
              i see myself working— tick, tock. nothing 
              is really spoiled, only the battery weakens,
              & only this throat is full of dust. it slows me 
              down: my skin slick with sweat.

again, i reopen this line of poem with my televised body:
              a broadcast of fatigue. 
              there is a borrowed light in my bones.
              pixels flickering, see how my limbs 
              stutter mid-motion between cure 
              & shutdown—
                            what does a drone 
                                          ever dream of, if not the mercy of silence??

—Ismail Yusuf Olumoh

The Last Nightingale

I. Before

Listen. I know what you're thinking—
this is rescue, this is love made manifest,
this is science serving the sacred.

But I've been singing for thirty-seven years
(which is, let's be honest, impossible
for my species, but we'll get to that)
and I know the difference between a cage
and a sanctuary, between preservation
and possession.

The white coats gather with their gentle hands,
their careful needles, their maps of my brain
spread like migration routes they'll never fly.
Dr. Martinez explains in her soft voice
how the neural implants will stabilize
my consciousness, how the nano-repairers
will keep my cells from aging, how
they'll record every note I've ever sung
and every note I'll ever sing.

For posterity, she says. For the children
who will never hear wild nightingales
because there are no wild nightingales.
Just me. Just this small brown body
they've decided is worth more than freedom.

The irony isn't lost on me—they're using
the very technology that poisoned
the insects that fed us,
the same progress that lit up the night
so completely that my kind forgot
how to navigate by stars.
They ask if I consent.
As if I could say no.
As if they'd listen if I did.
As if they haven't already decided
that my voice matters more
than my choice.

I want to tell them what it was like
before—how we sang not for humans
but for the sheer joy of darkness,
how our songs carried stories
of where the sweetest berries grew,
which cats to avoid, when the storms
would break.

But they wouldn't understand.
They think song is performance,
not conversation.
They think preservation is love,
not control.

So I open my beak and let them
map my vocal cords with their instruments,
let them catalog my repertoire
like it's a museum collection
instead of a living language
that dies a little more
each time they translate it
into their digital forever.

—Stephen Jackson