THE WAY WE THINK OF BIRDS by Caitlin Andrews
the neck of the swan that ate lunch from our
palms could only resemble a contralto violin if you
laid the millet on the marl and paused to
feast your ears on the minutiae instead of the melody,
the warbling sounds
of a singular ravenous avian’s note
not a hairbreadth away from the neighbouring goose,
with tomia instead of teeth, who stretched her
feathery limbs four feet wide and, in the
garbled eclipse of dinnertime at sundown,
spat gobbets of birdseed into the baby’s eye.
palms could only resemble a contralto violin if you
laid the millet on the marl and paused to
feast your ears on the minutiae instead of the melody,
the warbling sounds
of a singular ravenous avian’s note
not a hairbreadth away from the neighbouring goose,
with tomia instead of teeth, who stretched her
feathery limbs four feet wide and, in the
garbled eclipse of dinnertime at sundown,
spat gobbets of birdseed into the baby’s eye.
Caitlin “Cait” Andrews is a multidisciplinary writer, editor, philosophy undergraduate, miscellaneous maker of things, and amateur human being. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Periphery Magazine, ARMONíA Magazine, Outlander Magazine, and Soft Sound Press, amongst others. She currently lives in a small flat in Scotland with two black cats and one adult man, somehow. You can find her at: https://linktr.ee/caitlin_andrews
