“Between Birdsong and Nothing” by Nod Ghosh — A Tuesday Feature

Between Birdsong and Nothing

The lizard-skinned woman from the candy cane house hugged wine in her
hands and cried,

there are no birds
the birds have gone

In fading light, through earth-roar tremors, we smoked like bad weather and
drank like drowned pigs. Bill boiled malevolent water on a wood stove, flashed
his bottom for fun, while we assembled jigsaws of sound. And waited.

No whio, no fantail, no warbler, no tern. No chaffinch or sparrow.
Instead, the urgency of the radio, and a dist...