how starlings bathe in the plastic gutter over my bedroom’s bay window, fountaining out water in big dollops and how their claws go scrabble scrabble where the gutter dips above a corner and how they bathe to get rid of mites while having lots of fun enjoying their cold baths and how I used to love soaking in a hot bath and how wild starlings typically live two to five years although a 22-year-old wild
starling was found in Denmark and how my typical lifespan is/was 58 and how starlings have starry plumage and rainbowy neck feathers and how I once had pretty hair and how if I open my window the starlings take fright and how my body keeps trying to eject me the way birds don’t trust humans no doubt for good reason and how starlings use flocking and communal roosting to increase their survival rate and how I’ve lost touch with friends and how my body was a friend and we had many quarrels but things always turned out all right until they stopped turning out all right and how starlings use migration to increase their survival rate and how I should try going on holiday and how if I don’t eat anything for 24 hours maybe I could take a dip in slightly warmer than lukewarm water without sparking a flare-up and how cold baths are recommended
but you need wings
Frances Gapper’s work has been published in four Best Microfiction anthologies and lit mags including trampset, Splonk, Southword, Wigleaf, New Flash Fiction Review, the Citron Review, Forge, Atlas and Alice, 100-Word Story, Literary Namjooning and Trash Cat. She lives in the UK’s Black Country region.
Brilliant. Brilliant. Wow.
ReplyDelete