thing with the feathers

by Alexa Mauzy-Lewis

“and what if Time doesn’t heal?” I ask the thing with the feathers.

“after all these hallucination-plagued nights, I will remain this open wound, festering, rotting, but never scarring?”

“what is Time?” she coughed. “nothing more than a road we built, and for what? so you can feel like you are moving? that there is a point A and then a point B? who could care?”

“at point A I am the cradle-less child and at point B I am the unmourned corpse,” I cry.

she pecks at my toes as I pluck lines of grass from the yard.

“maybe,” she sighs, feathers falling from her black plume. pirouetting to the ground, they dust against my bare legs.

agitated, I write a name nine times over in the dirt.

“either way,” she adds, “when your Time is up and your pulse stops, my children and my grandchildren will feast on your body and for you we will be grateful.”