avian studies

By Mae Fraser

they say it is luck
when a feather,
molted from some avian giant,
falls in front of you.

from rows of
razor blade edges
that saw the open air,
cutting through
cloud-driven daydreams
of daytime birdwatchers,
one of them picked you.

these birds soar overhead,
their incessant caws
signaling an awakening,
an indecipherable language
only spoken by
the hypnotic movements
of creatures so boundless.

feathers that float,
birds that find their way
above me, what did I do
to get in their good graces?

I wish I could do them justice.
when I see them,
I wish I could draw
their elegance,
but my hand lies useless
on sketchbooks
filled with poems instead.

A caw, a glide,
and a dive,
they hide from onlookers,
leaving only feathers as signs that they were ever there.

only the lucky ones may ever see their colors.

---

Mae Fraser (they/them) is a queer poet, pagan practitioner, and hopeless romantic born, raised, and thriving in the New Hampshire seacoast. They have been previously published with Hobblebush Books, Hive Avenue, and Molecule: A Tiny Lit Mag. Find them online under the handles @maeflowerreads or @dazeymaes, or find them roaming bookstores, drinking too much caffeine, and singing their heart out in their car.