Flight
BY RACHEL BUNTING
The first time I found feathers on his pillow, I ignored
them. But it kept happening, each time I made the bed
the thin shafts poking my fingers. Finally I asked
my son where they came from. He had already begun
changing, his eyelids receding to thick pink wrinkles.
He only stared at me, unnerving, unblinking, and turned
away. What could I do but let him go. They were small anyway,
the soft afterfeathers matted together at the base of the shaft.
The next week he threw his favorite cat from his room
with a grunt and slammed the door. I pulled a feather
from the cat’s mouth, this one longer, the shaft spotted
with blood. The next day I saw a wound on his hand, angry,
swollen, as if something had been stolen there. He tripped
in the living room before breakfast, said he was still tired
and escaped to his room but I saw his feet later that night,
toes knuckling up, even joining together. He began to creep,
head bobbing forward. His mouth hooked to an unmistakable
beak and he stopped asking for dinner, instead tapped at the front
door each time a car passed. He said he could hear them,
the small animals unlucky enough to be hit. He begged
for me to bring them in, their small fresh bodies still road-warm
and soft. Because we do what we can for our children I agreed,
slipping each dawn along the road in search of last night’s erroneous
instincts, my palms itching against the fur matted with blood and dirt.
His teeth disappeared, his body turned in on itself. He no longer
tried to pull the feathers out, stopped wearing clothes entirely.
So dense, this new dark plumage. He said it didn’t hurt,
the hollowing of his bones, the reversing of joints. His voice was
the last to change, reducing to simple grunts. I didn’t know how
to talk with him then, just let him follow behind me, his eyes
unblinking all the way. I was lonely with him there.
One day I led him out into the yard, watched him test
his wings in the soft spring breeze. He lifted again and again,
the shadow of his wingspan darkening the yard, and I slipped
back into the house, closed all the windows. Locked the doors,
pulled the curtains. Turned out the lights. Ignored the tapping
on the window. I think he roosted in a dead oak tree out back
for months, a vulture only slightly larger than the rest.
After a few weeks it was hard to tell one from another.
The first time I found feathers on his pillow, I ignored
them. But it kept happening, each time I made the bed
the thin shafts poking my fingers. Finally I asked
my son where they came from. He had already begun
changing, his eyelids receding to thick pink wrinkles.
He only stared at me, unnerving, unblinking, and turned
away. What could I do but let him go. They were small anyway,
the soft afterfeathers matted together at the base of the shaft.
The next week he threw his favorite cat from his room
with a grunt and slammed the door. I pulled a feather
from the cat’s mouth, this one longer, the shaft spotted
with blood. The next day I saw a wound on his hand, angry,
swollen, as if something had been stolen there. He tripped
in the living room before breakfast, said he was still tired
and escaped to his room but I saw his feet later that night,
toes knuckling up, even joining together. He began to creep,
head bobbing forward. His mouth hooked to an unmistakable
beak and he stopped asking for dinner, instead tapped at the front
door each time a car passed. He said he could hear them,
the small animals unlucky enough to be hit. He begged
for me to bring them in, their small fresh bodies still road-warm
and soft. Because we do what we can for our children I agreed,
slipping each dawn along the road in search of last night’s erroneous
instincts, my palms itching against the fur matted with blood and dirt.
His teeth disappeared, his body turned in on itself. He no longer
tried to pull the feathers out, stopped wearing clothes entirely.
So dense, this new dark plumage. He said it didn’t hurt,
the hollowing of his bones, the reversing of joints. His voice was
the last to change, reducing to simple grunts. I didn’t know how
to talk with him then, just let him follow behind me, his eyes
unblinking all the way. I was lonely with him there.
One day I led him out into the yard, watched him test
his wings in the soft spring breeze. He lifted again and again,
the shadow of his wingspan darkening the yard, and I slipped
back into the house, closed all the windows. Locked the doors,
pulled the curtains. Turned out the lights. Ignored the tapping
on the window. I think he roosted in a dead oak tree out back
for months, a vulture only slightly larger than the rest.
After a few weeks it was hard to tell one from another.
RACHEL BUNTING lives and writes in South Jersey, the beautiful half of a maligned state. Her poems can be found in Boxcar Poetry Review, Weave Magazine, and Shit Creek Review. She has been inside both Norman Mailer’s Orgy Room and his living room. She likes it when you try to guess which she prefers.
