The Bird Eaters | Rebecca Valley

Rebecca Valley is a poet and editor from Saint Albans, Vermont. Her work has been published in Pontoon, Rattle, Black Warrior Review, and other journals. She is the associate poetry editor at FairyTale Review and the editor-in-chief of Drizzle Review, a book review site with a focus on under-represented authors and books in translation. She most recently worked a middle school librarian on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington,where she has lived for the last five years. You can find her online at www.rebeccavalley.com.     We Ate the Birds   This morning the cat left a body on the porch.  It was a yellow songbird, the size and shape of a fist.   The cat wasn't hungry. I understand. This morning I dipped my pinky finger into a cup of hot tea just past the fingernail so I could feel the heat from all angles.   Lately, the cat and I share matte black pupils. We hunch over the body of the bird, plucking feathers to reveal a sheet of transparent skin and   delicate, hollow bones.  Though nei