death

I did not find them. They found me. I was on the roof in the late afternoon, trying to fix one of the rotors on Municipal Drone-40. I’ve never been…

WOVEN is an Entropy series and dedicated safe space for essays by persons who engage with #MeToo, sexual assault and harassment, and #DomesticViolence, as well as their intersections with mental…

* * * Peacock So much love, and it can do nothing against death! —César Vallejo It lies by the motorway’s rain-shrouded shoulder, motionless & mud-robed. Orphaned __________by the morning…

I notice the dead bird on my way back from the grocery store. When I see his body splayed on the pavement, one wing bent snaking away from him, I…

* * * They arrive a few minutes earlier than anticipated, deviating from the embossed schedule that sits crumpled within my hand. The sound of them slicing across the horizon…

* * * The Fatal Flight The pigeon mistook the glass for the sky rocketing energy hit the window— ______________the shock was mute. The bird flopped on the terrazzo floor…

* * * The Bird I hear splatters of dark wings emptying into bushes. She perches, on thinned crisp bones, waiting for my eyes to avert before trusting that open…

* * * Vultures High in the cottonwood fingered wings bend the air, the swoosh of black wool robes.     * * * Day’s End, Twoloon Lane Who cooks…

Dear Carole, Today I learned that like humans, birds have four-chambered hearts. Can you imagine? In those tiny, frail-boned bodies with feathers that float right off in a healthy breeze.…

A warm, tender wind swirled inside the hollow as the rising sun shimmered over the edge of the opening. The nest felt more comfortable than I could ever remember, making…

* * * Be careful with this hurt creature that you hold: a little bird, barely breathing but gently panting, after you quieted her heartbeat in your hands The softest…

* * * The Seagull The bird is spattered with sand. Its long feathers glisten with damp and keratin. The body is still a snowy white, its wings a delicate…

I.   They had all disappeared before I arrived. Death. Distance. Disconnection. And discontent. Mother said her mum jubilated when she conceived me. But earth had taken her in, folding…

Dear Uncle R., Here’s what the stories have told me: you died in 1987 at home, not in Vietnam. I was born in 1990. My coworker—an army reserve who saw…