I wrote the first draft of this poem on February 7, 2021, a month after the Indonesian flight mysteriously vanished, inspired by the poet Kelli Russell Agodon’s post on poems being about unexpected things. We were in midst of the pandemic, a Maryland snowstorm, and I was taking lots of photos of the birds coming to the feeder I placed a few feet outside our bay window when we had the surprise visitor. 

Christopher Ankney’s first collection, Hearsay (WWPH), won the Jean Feldman Prize and was a post-publication finalist for the 2015 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. His manuscript Dear Irreverence, was a finalist for the Brittingham & Felix Pollak Prizes at University of Wisconsin Press.

W: www.christopherankney.com
I: @thatchristopherankney