There were no feathers, though my father looked
torch an oily, smoking star
he bid me follow north.

We found bones.

Cracked open for their marrow, stacked
in heaps against the walls
too brittle to be clever
no matter how my father willed it.

He took one with a sharpened end
kept it in his palm, even while we slept.

I knew he feared the dark.

We ate beef, until the maggots set in
and then we built ourselves an escape
from the ruins of its ribcage.

No feathers, only broken bone.

No feathers, only broken hope.