Charlotte Fong is training to become an English Teacher, whilst experimenting with writing poetry, flash fiction, and short stories. She has recently been long-listed for the Bath Flash Fiction Prize and had poetry featured in Young Ravens Literary Review. She lives in Lancaster, UK with her husband and enjoys frequent visits to explore the beautiful nature and scenery of the Lake District.
City Dwellers
Open wings glide home. The beak has a sure sense
of the north westerly, catching a free ride on Atlantic
lifts. Follow contrails into familiar stratocumulus, spy
rivers below leading towards the forest through towering
buildings, grown taller. Rest on what was once an aging
oak, now a window-box growing mint and parsley. Gathering
twigs blown to the grey blanket underneath, begin to assemble
your refuge on the thirteenth floor. Food appears overnight:
fruit and seeds with confusing undertones of other mammals;
the search for damp, open earth made suddenly less critical. Open,
stretching young arrive, safe here with no claws to snatch or bat
from side to side. They grow, gentle and windswept in equal measures.
Take flight over feral voices and growling engines, lift your new
bodies over the rush. Airtight and weaving, abandon your temporary
home until you feel spring breath once more on the crosswind.
Charlotte Fong