a swallowtail, peppered moth, and hummingbird amble into a bar

for their wings were weighted with the morning dew

the swallowtail requests a screwdriver: “haste, brother – my wings initiate hurricanes when dry.”

the moth, afflicted with akinetopsia (after a particularly brutal run-in with an insectivore), camouflages against the grain of the bar top – as light through light, or glass through water, or ashes on ashen oak

and quietly asks for a blind pilot; fractured eyes working in dissonance against his broken occiput, saccading uselessly toward the frozen bartender.

the hummingbird, murmuring to himself, distracted by tinnitus brought on from constant high-velocity, ossicle-eroding winds, gingerly requests a cider,

and without further comment, slumps in hypoglycemic stupor, fractured wingbones crumpling underneath his weight.

the bartender does not laugh, and the swallowtail and moth sip in silence and do not mourn,

for they all share the revelation that god is the air, and the devil is the wind, and the bar in which they sit is something else altogether.