albatross, polyethylene – Matthew Leep

each bone becoming driftwood

each feather becoming one with the Pacific

each call becoming a constellational elegy

we don’t see you fading

only the fade

we don’t see your past

only the bones

we don’t see your loss

only the remains

each bone bearing the origins of worlds

each feather holding a transworld moment

each call carrying the circumpolar wind

proventriculus

polyethylene

pyre

Matthew Leep is a poet and political scientist who writes about multispecies entanglements. Matthew’s book, Cosmopolitan Belongingness and War: Animals, Loss, and Spectral-Poetic Moments, is forthcoming with State University of New York (SUNY) Press. You can follow Matthew on Twitter @matthewcoenleep.