Introductions : oh, hello

I found a bird. She was made of black and white. Flightless and loveless, swollen by the rain, dried pulp at the edges, she came apart in my hands and so I held on lightly, spoke quietly.

We sat in the sun, my bird and I, and she dried until she was stable, able to stand alone in the grass, in my hand. It was then that I saw the fold. I touched her beak without recoil, whispered Sorry, and unfolded only to find another and another and another. Fold after fold, my little bird expanded more and more until my tiny swollen bird was a faded map.

She was a map of words wound round and round without lines and without markers, only the words in black and white. My bird who was a map became a girl created in the words I traced, spoke aloud, the topography of her body, the geography of her person.

My bird who was my girl who is now you, she taught me cartography and I recognised those words I wrote as another me, in a different life. A me who wrote of love and always impossible you. The me that captured you in print and folded you for flight. The me that sent you away and my tears that threatened to disintegrate you.

I found you and I belong to you, my birdgirl.