The Chicken Or Fish Option I. At night the birds turn to fish –watch them waver in the water.
by Brian Clifton
Their wings beat eddies; their lungs fluid-filled. Under the moon who’s to say a feather is not a scale on which to measure blood and saline? Hideous, hideous fish. They swim through a feral kitten’s utterance. They are where they are not– their beaks with obtuse angles. Their songs wrapped in bubbles. Silent wing broken against surface tension. Where are birds’ gills? Their ballast bladders? This is why as fish they only last a night. Imagine wearing that mask constantly breeching against windows. Sunrise, their broken gasp of air. II. In the day, the birds turn to brides. A monstrous plumage gown that hangs from their necks. Their wings merely the ornaments they long to dissolve at night. The brides buff their talon rings with chlorine until they’re nighted minnows and they suffocate. 43