Claire Jean Kim

With the Moon On Their Wings

The ibises are here.
A 100-bird earthworm-excavation crew.
When you have that beak, everything looks like a beach.
Homeowners stand on ruffled squares of green.

The ibises are gone.
Except for this one, pecking aimlessly.
Going through the motions of ibisness while panicking inside.
They have left me behind.

In a fairy tale, he’d be magical.
Villagers would flock from near and far to hear
his croaky oracles. But it’s 2024, and the world is nothing
if not disenchanted.

He’s approaching some crows.
Imagine if they take him to their nightly roost.
Thousands of birds coming together in the darkening sky,
one a little different to the eye.

 

 

 

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Claire Jean Kim is on the faculty at University of California, Irvine, where she teaches classes on racial justice and human-animal studies. She began writing poetry in 2021, and her poems have been published in or are forthcoming in Rising Phoenix Review, Terrain.org, Tiger Moth Review, Anthropocene, The Ilanot Review, Ghost City Review, Triquarterly, and The Missouri Review. Terrain.org nominated her poem “Mastodon” for the Best New Poets anthology in 2024, and The Missouri Review will feature her poem “Amsterdam” as their Poem of the Week.