Under the Waterfall

It all began on a Summer solstice dawn: the sun disappeared in a fiery sky of molten marigolds and blood flowers tainting misty waterfalls all the way to the swan cove.  And the startled swans wandered around mounds of featherless flesh lying pell-mell, sleeping forms with sparse down crowning their heads, a burnt umber field of sepia limbs sprouting from broken shells, their strange, acrid smell, terrified them: flapping their immaculate wings, they kept bathing in the purifying waters, came back to the inert bodies in maddened circles biting their own tails amidst the dormant newborns: had they heard of Andersen’s tales they’d wonder why they were all cursed at once with ugly little ducklings, unaware they were witnessing the origin of the human race.  

Hedy Habra is the author of a collection of short stories, Flying Carpets, a collection of poetry, Tea in Heliopolis,and a scholarly book Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa.  Her multilingual work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Drunken Boat, Cider Press Review, Puerto del Sol, The New York Quarterly, Nimrod, Cutthroat, Poet Lore, Poetic Voices Without Borders 2, and Inclined to Speak.