THREE SWANS IN ONE
1
I saw a swan flying and couldn’t remember
If swans fly
Alone
Over the gray-green desert,
Or if they sing
The perpetual horizon of birdsong as it vanishes
2
Sound, like light is an afterwards: the evidence in a contrail across the sky if you look close
If swans fly alone
I must be dreaming
The beat of wings like hunger in abstract, in theory
The pinch-test, but it only works once
Because living underwater makes everything else feel like the sky
3
Here they are then, all the exotic animals I’ve ever eaten alive
Flapping against the stage lights and painted alpine of my belly
I am the whale who swallows
Clouds full of carnival mirrors
They are lighting matches inside me and snuffing them out two by two
Glint Literary Journal 