Google image search
returned more results of odd
looking birds than I
could have ever bargained for.

Cousin to the Night-
jar & Frogmouth, the Great Potoo
is a glitch of life in barken
chrysalis; its secret will soon sally
from its perch
like a remote control drone
sheathed in heart attack iris
& sketches of burgundy.
The stump moves and I’m freaking out
— the hand forgot it was there.

A person becomes accustomed to boring fowl
who’ve become entitled to nibbles of Dave’s Killer Bread.
To revealing the recipe that made your dog so cute
people want to:
squeeze it until it poops.

I don’t want to say it:
            he’s a yorkipoo.

So when an entire gallery of mystical beasts,
purple toads and mountain boomers,
are made into Real Life and available to me,
now that I’m out of fresh episodes of nostalgia,
you have to know I’m going to lose it.

But even then, after awhile,
I grow accustomed. Bored to the detail.

The texture of its pelage is too pronounced
& the lighting—
this isn’t a fair representation of the creature’s
raw design.

C.C. Hannett is the alter ego of Kris Hall; a poet who writes and lives with his wife and their animals in the PNW. Author of chapbooks published by Horse Less Press and Shotgun Wedding, an imprint of Alice Blue Books. He is the former curator of the reading series Da'daedal and Ogopogo, events focused on showcasing interdisciplinary work. He has been featured or is set to appear in Gramma, (b)OINK, DUM DUM Zine, PageBoy, Reality Beach, SHARKPACK Annual, Vanilla Sex Magazine, DREGINALD and Fog Machine, among others.