The Key Swallower

The second in a series of lonely birds I started earlier this year, this time a swallow mourning the loss of his key.


“You and I shared a brief fame in a small town
In which I had written our names on a post;
There was a shadow of shame creeping over us,
Ready to snuff out the flames we had stoked.
Up in the sky was a plane flying vagrantly,
I glowered full of disdain for its height,
Putting impossible strain on my patiently 
Well-deserved link in the chain of your life.”

- Allan Fernus, excerpt from A Giant’s Tears, Descension era