by Elizabeth Joy Levinson

What odd length of you, tibia, tarsus, the nape of you
bodies bent flat on the shore, feathers dirty, unpreened
mandible, maxilla, arrows towards nothing,
awkward in death, heavy headed,
wings slightly pulled away, you are
a leaf on the beach, you are delicate angel,
you are warning —
Once nearly gone, you returned by the hundreds,
and this may be how you’ll go again, breast to breast,
restricted blood flow in the icy water, together, you keel,
your joints swollen in pain, your lungs desperate, too tired to struggle,
the phantoms of you frighten me. Once, on a bright day in October, some years ago,
my love and I heard them calling from different corners of the city. I do not know
what other strange musics we will lose, or can afford to.

Elizabeth Joy Levinson is a biology teacher in Chicago. Her work has been published in Whale Road Review, SWWIM, One Art, The Shore, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others. She is the author of a full-length collection, Uncomfortable Ecologies, available from Unsolicited Press, as well as two chapbooks. She can be found can be found at Instagram @ejoylevinson and on the web at ejoylevinson.com.