The feathers are green with a sickly tinge - almost earthly now that the body as been evacuated away into nothing, perhaps picked over by prey and later scavenged - and then further consumed, digested and transformed by microbodies - commoning pluripotencies of dissolve.

There is no head, neck or torso that I could find, rather only the outstretch of bones, the ones that reach into graceful spans of poise, and hinge into those enormous discreet foldings.

It's good that I am nosy and my eyes keen enough to have spotted the swans partial skeleton in the depths of the riffle range, near the spot where there is the cache of empty cartridges between three stones, and not far from the massive rusted iron plate with the large missile gouges taken out of it. For all the world as if two dimensions were propelled into three, and then three into four and so on.

I had wondered how the swans know when to leave the stormy westerly side, what indications of barometric shifts alert them to jeopardy. I see them, heads down, entire necks plunged, atop the choppy fast waves, indifferent and far hardier than I'd given them credit for. But there is a tempo of wind that even for them is too harsh and vigorous and during those spells they shelter in the eastern inlets and sheltering curves.

The wind was a particular ferocity the night before last, yesterday morning tree parts were scattered everywhere - spongy and snapped. In the dark even the house had begun to creak and move slightly, shifting in the face of the force of its force. The fridge was overcome with spookiness and emitted a sharp tapping with a Victorian seance table rap and then fell quiet. The second time it did my skin shrugged away from me and landed as I laughed, at both myself and the fridge.