WEBVTT

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Chapter 4.

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After I ditched Not A Baby,
I let myself into her home.

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That creature, the
riches she accrued.

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Smoked salmon, cloudberries
preserved in sugar.

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It was permanently
summer in her kitchen.

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And I wanted to stay forever.

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But her furniture
prohibited permanence.

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On the lounge, I was
comfortable enough

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as a little Chuda or
a grown Ggugguyni,

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but it felt best when I
caught myself between the two.

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I split, and I slept
in her den and dreamed

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disorderly dreams that were
neither nightmare nor prophecy.

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They lacked sweetness, and
they were full of drownings.

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I woke.

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I tried to eat.

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The containers resisted
my grip, and only my knife

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remained palmed.

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When she reappeared
in the doorway,

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my knife slid below
her sternum as

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though I were a
hunter field dressing

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an already cored animal.

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Perhaps I thought her body
would become my cloak.

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More honestly,
perhaps I was afraid.

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She laughed at me, and
pulled her hands away

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from what should
have been a wound.

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And there was nothing there.

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She laughed again.

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And in my terror I
asked, what are you?

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Your people named me evil,
she said, but you came here

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and you treated me well.

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Then she gestured
at me, now back

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into whoever you really are.

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My wings ceased impersonating
arms, and my tail plumed.

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I came back to
myself and flew away.

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For weeks now, I wake in my
nest and I look at myself

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in the mirror.

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My wing waves in
front of my face,

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and I tell myself, return
to who you really are.

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But it must be a matter of
feathers and intonation.

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I haven't mastered it yet.

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I know because my face remains
in spite of my beak cawing.

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