‘Final Feeding’

Kate Howe, 2023, kraft paper, aluminum wire, tar, shellac and stitching.

“She’s too big

lifting, never rising, she pushes, folds, opens,

and is closed

Grotesque; she should not be conceived in a box like this; it doesn’t feel ethical to press her ragged wings against the walls

Sew her shut and drag those limbs, strong as silk, 

Through the tar

she knows she will not live

but she will fight for every moment inside this box

or breaking it, die anyway. 

“I proved it to myself yesterday.” she wrote six years ago in a note she left for me.

“If I fight, I WIN.” 

I hear you, dead and arisen through 

Sysiphisian baptisms of catastrophic

Female malaise. 

You died anyway, I whisper, as I hold her to my chest, encircle her with arms, alive once again, but no longer hers. 

My wing hits the window.”

- Kate Howe