Downy Feathers

By August Bennet

in the threshold between you
& who you think you are

there is a bird sitting on the feeder
there is a squirrel nesting in alcove,

in branching ivy, in your mouth
babies chirp & squirm in soft

tissue, buds of orange trees & fish eggs
manta ray sunning on black sand,

words you said that you shouldn’t have
under your breath, rests between measures

cross-stitch through skin unseverable
from that which birthed it, swelling new

as droplets of blood drip

& stain & stain & stain & stain
​
still at threshold,            gripping to faint
presumption      of
                                        self
there is nowhere
                      but here                     for you
                   to suck out the marrow & spit
            back what is not
                          serving you
free from          fluorescence or
                                                     bile

allow yourself to
           open the gate
                        & breathe fresh water

                              allow yourself dirt
            beneath skin & sound of unreachable
fawn hooves      on riverbank
allow tears to be crystallized
           & dancing
           in rays of sun

---

August Bennet is a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where they received a BFA in Writing & Applied Arts and a BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. They have interned as the managing editor and the editor-in-chief of UW-Green Bay’s undergraduate staffed Journal of Art and Literature, Sheepshead Review, during the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters respectively. They are a writer interested in gender, the body, horror, and nature, and their poetry appears in Anti-Heroin Chic, Sheepshead Review, and Northern Lights.