Snug in her snow-flake-pattern jacket and red rain boots, Xochi-Ann clomps down the sidewalk and sing-songs good morning. Beady-eyed, the crow who owns the stop sign measures the six-year-old, nods, and, trying to tailor intonation to task, caws once. His voice smokes from the burns of his last life. Interstellar rider of dark leptons, his ship’s wavefront barreled and broke in a solar storm. Crusoed in a crow at 44th and Hill, his mind Picassoed, the Tau Ceti engineer assembles wires and lost keys in his nest, hoping to send an SOS. Xochi-Ann is a friend in the wilderness, and, perhaps, perhaps, a purveyor of parts. From atop his stop sign, he caws again. Xochi-Ann tilts her head and says mother has a ruby ring.


Fueled by gratitude the starship
unfurls sunshades over Earth
snow in Seattle