the first thing the auk notices about heavenis just how thin it is: one aglow tentacleof a jellyfish stretched between the high cirrus& plankton-dusted space. the amenities arethat it feels like flying & that there’s no shade.the auk is not impressed. she never needed air to fly& she’d like to sleep without the sun’s insistence.oh well. she bides her time laying eggs on the backsof passing birds. she dives for plankton but the starsare farther than they look. space is barren, shornonly rarely by mute mirror-sided whales. she floatsfor some immeasurable period on the tufts of a greatconversion: the sailors of st. kilda, christian at long last.then they forget what they’ve done or they die or the windchanges. the auk, who has subsisted on clouds,snags a piece of the tastiest & drags it down with heras she descends. it is then—in how the fogs wreathe her,in some gone-grey twist of the light—that shetransforms / witch-auk lands in the north atlantic.she is an invention: the fantasy & its rejection—a monstrosity—slippage—not-human &not-not. the sea is a sheet of glass that breaksto pieces, breaks to pieces—wounds that suturethemselves. working as fast as they can.