Field guide No. 739
Swifts midway through a brick wall
Shortcut through the gable end.
At dusk over a town, a line of swifts flies straight into a brick wall and out the other side, two of them caught halfway with bricks pushed out round them. They have done this before.
Field noteSolid brick and a bird in the same place at once, the brick bulging politely. One of them has to give, and neither has.
- Specimen
- No. 739
- Genus
- Generated
- Kind
- Impossible (the round square kind)
- Where it doesn’t exist
- A brick gable over rooftops at dusk.
- Nearest existing relative
- A common swift.
- Filed in Fresh slop as
- Surreal
Also impossible, also breaking physics
A glacier opens to summerOne doorway, two seasons side by side, both in the same air. Winter and summer can’t share a threshold.
Moth through the birchA body cannot be on both sides of a solid trunk. This moth’s wings are, with the tree unbroken between.
Sheep grazing beneath the kelpSheep graze underwater among tall kelp. They have not brought the equipment for breathing.
Black sheep, white reflectionReflections return what stands over them; this pool hands back the flock’s version of the animal.