Flock Plus One

Flock Plus One Crouching among a gaggle of dabbling Canadian geese, a brown skinned child pushes back long black hair, intent on building a tidal pool of which he can be King. Extending a ridiculously long neck, a goose wades gingerly into the water, snapping his wings forward in a fluster, indignant with the cold. Another approaches the boy curiously, black eyes assessing the construction; haughtily disinterested, it continues ambling along the inlet. The sporadic hiss and honking of a gander whose life mate is being wooed by another doesn’t faze the child, methodically tapping his palms along the outskirts of his pond. Another goose watches him, unconcerned, from her nest on a muskrat mound, tiny hatchlings in yellow down chirp soundlessly. Spittles of rain dust the child’s ebony hair and the gaggle’s black feathers. The cluster huddles around the boy, having seemingly accepted him as one of their own.