Wild Creatures

by Heather Cadenhead

A bird flies toward fireglow— not knowing that a door will slam behind him or that screams will shake the beams of an unsuspecting cottage. No one cares that he is beautiful and delicate. They will not live under the tyranny of his unrelenting gaze, the sudden flutter of wild wings.

I am cutting branches lost to root rot when he catches my eye. I’ve never seen a bird this close before. I kneel beside the cypress. Someone hurt him because they didn’t know what to do with him, because they were afraid.

I call an information hotline.

They want to take him.

They can help him, they swear.

I lose him—

I lose him to needle pricks and throat swabs, test after test. I sign stacks of stapled papers that no one explains.

They show me how to restrain him, should he flutter his wings. They want to make sure I understand the technique.

They can show me again, if I want.

It is for my safety as well as his.

No, no, I say.

I saw the first time.

He is no bird—just a boy, his wildness like lace stitched bone to whitecap bone, his eye a blue muscle, circling different markers for human development.

In his hands, a different rubric.

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Heather Cadenhead holds a degree in creative writing from Union University. Her poems and essays are published or forthcoming in Ekstasis Magazine, The Rabbit Room, The Clayjar Review, Vessels of Light, and other publications. Previously, she won the New Plains Review Editorial Prize and was nominated for Best of the Net. She lives in Tennessee with her husband and sons.