Turning
by Sylvie Pingeon

They are birds before they become children. Alight on the rocky beaches, picking orach, russian olives, the supple, tart thorns of the cat-briar which has not yet grown woody and sharp. At night, a tautog fish lulls them to sleep with angry murmurs. In the mornings, they awake to the sun rising. They wake together always, their salt-streaked bodies nestled close, Layla’s larger wing tucked over her little sister, Freya’s, fragile, pulsing back. There is no time, just now, and they soak in this nowness, let it saturate their feathers, drink it up through their beaks.