I: New Moon
Nobody saw her molt the first time. She locked herself
in the pantry, feathers like oil slicks sprouting from her
shoulder blades, smelling of wet pennies and burnt sugar.
When she emerged, she said she felt light, like something
had been peeled away and then she ate the clock. Not out of
anger, mind you, but because she wanted to “taste time.”
Dad stopped asking questions after that.
II: Waxing Crescent
A sliver of her new self began to show. She started painting
her reflection on every surface: mirrors, windows, soup spoons,
adding extra eyes. “So I can watch myself grow,” she said.
At night, she left offerings of hair and fingernails beneath
the garden statue of Saint Francis, whispering to the worms.
The house smelled of feathers and antiseptic.
III: First Quarter
Half of her was human now, half something else. She perched
on the banister, feet hooked like claws, discussing the stock market
as if it were migration. Her laughter came out in shrieks that rattled
the radiator. When she hugged me, her ribs pressed too hard, like
branches testing their strength before spring.
IV: Waxing Gibbous
Her appetite expanded along with her plumage. She devoured
the curtains, the cushions, the pet goldfish, and the word forgiveness.
Said she didn’t need such soft things cluttering her insides. Dad caught
her staring at the moon through the oven door, murmuring recipes
for ascension. “Almost ready,” she told him.
V: Full Moon
She was enormous. Feathers black as spilled ink, beak glinting like
cut glass. She circled above the house, crooning lullabies about hunger
and birth and the pleasure of undoing one’s own shape. I watched her
shadow swallow the street. The neighbours lit candles. Dad packed a bag.
VI: Waning Gibbous
Afterward, pieces of her lingered: plucked feathers, footprints burned
into the lino, the faint echo of her heartbeat in the pipes. She came back
once, smaller, almost human again, but her voice was backward: every
sentence unspooling into silence. She kissed me on the forehead and
left a feather in my mouth. I swallowed it.
VII: Third Quarter
Half her memory remained. The rest belonged to the wind. Old clothes
hung in the closet like unhatched cocoons. Dad refused to touch them.
Sometimes, when the moonlight hit just right, the shadows inside
those garments fluttered, as if rehearsing return.
VIII: Waning Crescent
All that was left was a single egg, trembling on the kitchen table.
It smelled faintly of lilacs and bleach. On the shell, someone had written,
in her handwriting: Next month, I’ll be better. We didn’t open it.
We just kept the light low and waited, pretending the ticking from inside
was the clock she’d once devoured, learning again how to keep time.
Luigi Coppola – www.linktr.ee/PoetryPreacher – poetry, music, rum & coke. Featured at Glastonbury Festival, Tate Modern, Greenwich Theatre, Koestler Arts, Cutty Sark, Southbank Centre’s New Poets Collective, Poetry Archive Worldview winner, Bridport shortlist, Ledbury & National longlist, Lost Souls & Farrago Slam Champion, music as ‘The Only Emperor’, debut from Broken Sleep Books.
Dohyun Baek – www.dohyunbaek.com – multidisciplinary contemporary artist working across painting, installation, sculpture, and performance. Exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool), New Art Exchange (Nottingham), Unit 1 Gallery (London), and Salon De Art (Seoul). Selected for John Moores Painting Prize (2020), Chaiya Art Awards (2023), and NAE Open (2025).