Askew

by Dawn Macdonald ​ A contemporary witch can ride a canister of compressed air by directing the outflow against the teeth of a plastic comb while clutching a coal- black kitten. The astute reader notes the conundrum: she has not hands enough: for comb, cat and canister nozzle. It just takes practice. ​ An owl’s ears are asymmetrically placed to enable vertical sounding by analyzing the time differential in the arrival of a signal. The scruffiness is a part of the predatory act. ​ When you wear a skirt it’s like you’re getting away with not wearing pants. If you make a sufficiently complicated knot, it can be a sweater. You look quite ordinary. No one will even know.

Dawn Macdonald lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, where she was raised off the grid. She holds a degree in applied mathematics and used to know a lot about infinite series. Her poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, The Malahat Review, and Strange Horizons.