The Creation of the Birds

by Lorraine Schein
After the Remedios Varo painting ​

The feathered avian goddess
siphons liquid starlight
streaming from the high window
focused through a prism
onto her worktable.

Her ovum plant assistant
extends a helpful tendril
that holds a pollination palette.

She brushes spectral pigments
onto the emerged feathers
of sprouted fledglings

daubs their budding wings with dappled light
to germinate the ripening birds
and blossom them with flight.

Then she plucks the lute in her heart
to also conjure their song
proudly watching as they chirp
and flutter through her window
toward the evolving sky.

Lorraine Schein is a New York writer and poet. Her work has appeared in VICE Terraform, Strange Horizons, NewMyths and Mermaids Monthly, and in the anthologies, Wild Women and Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath. The Futurist’s Mistress, her poetry book, is available from Mayapple Press. Her new book, The Lady Anarchist Cafe, is out now from Autonomedia.