Call Friday

more. more she says. more. hear the word leave her room and echo down her hall, dropping long feathers as they go - see all these feathers litter the hall; walk her hall and hear as they crunch, barbs and shafts beneath your feet. peacock feathers meters high, tides of eyes and rachis, hissing a brackish odor, rising and permeating her call - more, more. all this a crow tells me: says all crows are peacocks as all were peacocks once: versed in the peacock rules of display; au fait with the peacock codes of etiquette and preening. but she only wanted more, no matter what she got. just more. took all we had, our size, our song, our beautiful feathers too, to line her empty halls: see me now, these black feather stumps, this neck