By Fatema Aftab Miah 

To taxidermy a bird
the first step
is to respect it.

What else are you meant to do
with something that gave
its soft life to become
a message?

You force it to look at the ground
and remind it
that the earth is home too.
You make an incision
from head to tail
expecting blood but
rubies come out instead
so you skin it to look for more.

When you don’t find it
you cut off its wings
and soak them in a salt solution
(your tears do not count).
Take it out and wait for it to dry.

It is strange,
all these steps.
Where I’m from
they do things differently.

They shoot at the wings
and let someone else drag the body.