The first, wet flight

Softening everything, sinking into the damp, fragile shelter of body. The words you wanted to write emerge at last, tight and unedited and tender. Cocooning. Cradling. Six lifetimes away, a butterfly crawls out, having eaten itself; wet, naked, without memory.

She spreads her wings.

Iridescence, weight

What is this feeling? Soft weight over where shrapnel shards and iron bars have imprinted themselves upon your skin. Waking up under a feather blanket. Can you remember how it came to be? When birds passed overhead you walked after so quietly; all day, all night, on forest paths, in summer wheatfields eerie with silver of the double moon. You saw a butterfly wing once, iridescent with promise of fire and rebirth; the rest of it, no doubt, was eaten. You leave it in the leaves.

You gather bird feathers instead: firebird and peacock, meadowlark, owl, the nameless bird of storms that passes through worlds, screeching as she dances.  Feather by feather, you drop them into this bright green silk.

If it is to warm you at night, the treasure of feathers cannot be seen.

Stitch by stitch, you make it so.

Under a double moon, six lifetimes away

The body is a birdcage of the soul, but it wants to be soft, it wants to be fed, it wants to be beautiful, it wants to be known. It wants the bones to sing. It wants the soul to teach it how. It wants the soul to be peregrine.

The body grows old, it wants to grow old, it wants to sink, it wants to regrow like trees under the silver of the double moon, whispering secrets in syllables. Between the roots, the forest animals rest, sleeping through winter: the hedgehog, the snake, the turtles, the white frog that had once lapped up the smaller moon like milk from the forest pond.

The birds have flown long ago.

But the body, the body is like this: it has swallowed the smaller moon and now it wants to keep it. To be still. To absorb, to brumate. To close the eyes, at least; at least that.

There is a world out there with only a single moon, you remember. The other one had been eaten, and you cannot blame the white frog.

The big moon

It was once burnished silver, but now it’s stripped bare like the body. It is cratered. It is mostly untouched, still, but it knows the destruction to come. The big moon has tasted fear, the big moon is making you taste the fear with every poisoned tide, it’s making you sing, making you dance, it’s making the tides in your body gyrate to a different tune from the rest of you, it’s making your whole wave turn. You consult a GP, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, another psychiatrist, a team. You barely manage to pay the bills. You refuse further treatment. You have no idea what to do.

You do not want to learn this secret. It is already within you, but you want someone to tell you, someone to guide you, someone to promise it will be fine. Someone: an iridescence. A storm.

You know this—the birds have flown long ago, but they left behind a tongue. It is yours. You curl it towards the soft palate, shaping a syllable of silver.

The secret

There is a knife in your pocket. It is utilitarian, rough, with a textural handle and a sharp, slick blade. If you cut the green silk and release the feathers, you might never sleep again.

Maybe there is no more miracle in those feathers: you crushed them with your weight, rolling and rolling yourself in the blanket, like a cocoon of the lost butterfly and her single slight wing.

The night is dark; the terrified moon cannot help you. The tattered blanket is draped over your shoulders. The bright green has faded. The feather padding is thin to the touch. If you wanted, you could retrace your steps through the forest and see if the birds dropped new feathers in your absence. If you wanted, you could use the knife and be cold forever, just to see what remains.

If you wanted: but you are simply standing under the trees, under the last living moon. The words you wanted to write are still in your mouth, tight and unedited and tender.