A poet watches a brown hawk enter through a nearby window from the darkening sky and settle in to drink water from a bronze dish. Only an armslength away, the poet attempts to capture the warm golden candlelit moment in words without disturbing the majestic creature’s moment of vulnerability.

  A seam forms at the corner of the hawk’s beaked mouth and runs down the length of its body. Two additional raptor legs fold out from beneath its wings and grip the edge of the basin to further steady itself. The seam splits open, revealing glistening red flesh and fangs.

  The seam continues to split.

  It is something like a cow skull with a grinning maw full of dog’s teeth, covered in exposed muscle and sandwiched between two yers of feathers. It rests on four bird feet and folded wings connect to where the horns would be. It is too rge and too solid to have possibly fit inside the body of the hawk. Two pairs of amber eyes form a line with the hawk’s eyes and they are the eyes of a god.

  The poet is still and silent, hoping not to be noticed. Or failing that, praying to be ignored.

  The hawkscowskulldogteethgod stops drinking the water from the bronze dish. It crosses the round marble table. It steps down onto the arm of the poet’s plush dark green chair. It climbs up the chair’s back. It moves behind the poet. Cws dig into the poet’s back and hip. Sharp weight passes back and forth across the poet’s body. Teeth sink into the poet’s shoulder.

  The poet will not sleep tonight.