Painted Animals

by Hannah Cajandig-Taylor

Dominik Lange

— After John Edgar Wideman’s “Stories”

The International Union for Conservation declared the Spix’s Macaw extinct in the wild twenty years ago. What ornithologist spent weeks bug-bitten in the Amazon swamps, recording field notes on foliage & absent birdsong. What compelled them to choose this life. Does the macaw know this. Can a culled bird sense the Aegean Blue of her feathers gleaming in the 5 o’clock glow. Is she aware of the golden hour. The nuances of parakeets & warblers. How does a macaw squawk when no one is listening. Does it matter. How do they know the difference between lost & living discreetly. Does the macaw pray for her mother at moonrise. Does she know she’s blue. Who stays up at night reaching for satellites, mourns the macaw like an unheld children’s kite ripped from the sky forever. When I wander through the pet store downtown, among the bulbous-eyed goldfish & feathered things with claws, I stop to stare at a fleet of mice. There must be thousands of them.

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Hannah Cajandig-Taylor is a poet and flash writer residing in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where she reads for Passages North and Fractured Lit. She’s the author of ROMANTIC PORTRAIT OF A NATURAL DISASTER (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and has work forthcoming in Gigantic Sequins and Sonora Review, among others. She’s been nominated for a Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions, but her proudest accomplishment is completing (almost) every Nancy Drew computer game. Find her on twitter @hannahcajandigt.