Feather or Fur?
Feather or fur?
Scale or skin?
What kind of covering
Are you in?
Skin or scale?
Fur or feather?
Tuft or slime or
Living leather?
How do you face
Inclement weather?
With skin or scale
Or fur or feather?
Or how evade?
With skin or scale?
With bare behind
Or bushy tail?
How do you forge
Identity?
In coop or pond
Or lake or tree,
With feather or skin
Or scale or fur?
Domesticated?
Venturer?
Yet feather or fur
Or scale or skin:
Animals all,
My kith, my kin.
Marian Novick, a writer of poetry, prose, and grocery lists, has contributed previously to Light. Poetry credits include Honorable Mention in the Maria Faust Sonnet Contest; prose credits include publication of her novel At Her Age (Scribner’s, 1985) and her story “Advent” (Prize Stories 1981: The O. Henry Awards). She enjoys playing with words.