Bok-bok Brother
GRANT FRAZIER
At the Cuenca aviary, a macaw landed on your shoulder—you didn’t even flinch. I would’ve sworn you two had met before, the way you both chirped on and on like old drinking buddies. You bobbed your head; the bird bobbed back. You made a squawk; the bird squawked back. All of a sudden, I realized: you are a bird, and you’ve always been a bird. You two are animal siblings.
Ten years ago, our stupid cockatiel, Polly, executed a perfect nosedive into a pan full of room-temp canola oil (the one you’d fried up chips with the night before). You buffed her soggy wings with soap for a week, even when she pierced your hands bloody with her scared little bird bites.
A year later, we woke up and she was dead. You and I shared a bunk bed back then, and I remember how you didn’t talk for three days, to me or anyone. You just bobbed your head—left-to-right and up-and-down. Nervous. Scanning. I tiptoed so you wouldn’t fly away. The only sound we shared was the creaky bedframe in our basement bedroom.
But I get it now. You are a bird, and mourning is hard in a second language. Maybe if I’d had a bird brain then, I could’ve squawked:
“[bok. bok.] I’m not a bird, I know, but I’ll nip your hand and bob my head if you’d like. You can play me your saddest songs, your Radiohead shit I never loved, and I’ll nod along with you—because you are my bird brother, and I want to talk [bok. bok.] to you.”
GRANT FRAZIER is a writer in Chicago. His work is published/forthcoming in Maudlin House, wildscape., FRiGG, WREATH Literary Collective, and The Urbanist, among others. Back in college, he co-founded The Prodigal Press (@prodigalpressprovo on IG). You can find him on Instagram @gant.fr, on Twitter @gantisdant, and Bluesky @gant.foo. All of his writing lives in a bungalow on his personal site, gant.foo.
