What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

a day of dead birds

A serpentine neck, the lank wings

streaked with Sicilian clay

and shoved into plastic. Such things

are omens. Silent and grey,

the dead swan sings no last note,

virulence holding sway

in her slender throat.

.

Elsewhere, men play at different games

with pot-luck and mixed success;

the old hawk sights, launches and claims

an eagle. They each profess

sorrow (which the act entails).

Neither a haruspex,

they scorn the entrails.

.

Today is a day of dead birds.

Rocs have gone from their sky-home,

disposessed and poor as old words.

We have made us a new Rome,

the dimachaeri unmasked

and crossing the sea-foam

where they were not asked.

.

- written in February 2006

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