I was frightened of feathers when I was a child, wondering why they lay around the playground in the dirt. Where was the bird? Then I learned they don’t need feathers forever. In school, I slit a quill to dip in ink, thinking it was cool. Then I became dismayed because of the way the vane came apart. I didn’t know that birds hook the barbs back together with their beaks to fix the feather. I grew weary of hearing, "What is heavier, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?" Pulsing, shimmering, peacock feathers, not all together, adorn the knotty pine wall by my grandmother’s hall closet. Feathers dyed red dance on darkened stage, swishing swiftly past all age. I danced once in a club called "Feathers" before the divorce. Once my daughter bought a fish named Feather. She didn’t know it was sick when she picked it out at the store. But no more fish for Lisa. Linda, my love, is allergic to feathers, sleeping atop sheets on a hot night with no pillow at all. I stare at her softness, moon glimmering in silence. The birds are quiet, not caring about lost feathers. --10/1/98
UPDATE (2021): Traci Zahn has a white girl chihuahua named Feathers.