AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Cassowaries fascinate me because they seem like the closest creatures we have to feathered dinosaurs. Their ferocious beauty inspired this poem — as did a couple encounters with cassowaries in Australia. The poem started in form, but gradually I pared it down to its sharpest words.

BIO:

Emma Sovich lives in a graveyard in Tuscaloosa, AL. She edits Black Warrior Review, MFAs at 'Bama, and dabbles in book arts. Find her poems now or soon in DIAGRAM, Gargoyle, Inch, and PANK, among others. She rambles at graveyardhouse.com.