I poke it with my stick once, thinking it’s a rock. I poke it again and I know it’s not, and I know why those geese were staring at me, and the stick is messy. And I run back across the island as fast as I can. And I never come back.




When they’re alive, I like them. Dead… Look, it’s not like I’m worried about the bird flu or something. But on one warm winter day just after my fifteenth birthday I rode my bike, alone as usual, to the marsh park by the river, took off my socks and shoes and held them in my hands as I waded across the shallows to the island in the middle. The river’s January water, freezing, of course, even in the warming sun, tickled my pale ankles and I took my time crossing. I even leapt to the washed-out bank of the island unhurriedly, deliberate.

I put my shoes back on and walk from one side of the island to the other, past the dead jewelweed, around the giant, dying tree, under the bridge, out to where bare rocks opened up to the river in a wide beach, facing upstream.  It’s quiet, a see into-the-sky-for-miles day with no one around at the park, not even the dog walkers, and nobody to see me as I pick up a stick and poke at the small rocks, trying to change direction of the flow of the whole river.

Geese stare at me as they swim nearby and I wonder why they stare and I stare back, making silly faces at them. When they don’t go away I ignore them, poking around the seaweed where I found a few river clams last spring. Near a bunch of dead grass poking up from the rocks I find it and stop poking. There’s a perfect sphere there and it’s white and clean and so beautiful, and it’s got this strange texture on its surface I’ve never seen before. I’m so stupid I don’t know what it is, but I know what it is. But I don’t believe it’s real.

I poke it with my stick once, thinking it’s a rock. I poke it again and I know it’s not, and I know why those geese were staring at me, and the stick is messy. And I run back across the island as fast as I can. And I never come back.

"Fear of Dead Birds" by Schuyler Swartout.